358 Aster History; Corpus 
strengthens the probability that Bock meant to include Anthemis 
tinctoria L. in his Tinctorius flos primus or Aster (p. 347). 
Cordus third aster, Anthemis nobilis, etc.—A third Aster so 
called, which was credited * to Cordus in Gesner’s edition of 1561 
was a figure representing the Chamaemelum aureum of that period, 
chiefly Anacyclus aureus L., but claimed + to include forms later 
classed as Anthemts nobilis L., and Cotula aurea L. 
So Cordus, who probably himself recognized only one Aster Aitt- 
cus and that the true one, in his posthumous work by the addition of 
mistaken figures was made to recognize three kinds of Aster Atti- 
cus, one of which alone represents three different genera of to-day. 
Cordus finds both purple and yellow in Aster.—Cordus was a 
principal authority for the emendation of Dioscorides’ color-phrase 
for Aster from “purple or yellow” to “purple azd yellow,” see 
citation, p. 356,n. He was so strong an authority that Saracenus, 
in opposing that view, mentions Cordus frs¢, though his emenda- 
tion was /as¢ to be published. Perhaps no stronger proof of Cor- 
dus’ power as a botanical influence need be sought. 
LXXIII. GeEsNER 
Conrad Gesner, perhaps the most broadly developed naturalist 
of the sixteenth century, was a man whose intellect had the whole 
world for its range, but whose actual travels were singularly cir- 
cumscribed for that active age. He lived and died in Zurich, his 
birthplace, was during much of his life professor in its university, 
and strayed but little beyond, though he visited Paris and Strasburg, 
Baden and the Rhaetian Alps. The son of a poor Swiss furrier, 
and born 1516, his uncle pastor Friccius is thought by Meyer to 
have given him his first schooling and his impulse to botany. But 
Gesner’s boundless thirst for knowledge and his tireless activity 
were limited by bodily weakness and cut short by his death of the 
plague while yet in his prime, December 13, 1565. { 
* Fide J. Bauhin, 2: 1044. 
t Fide Richter’s Linnaeus. 
t The very year of his completion of the labors of Moiban in editing the Zuf? 
rista ascribed to Dioscorides, as referred to 
Gesner’ s writings include botanical, bibliographic, ical medicinal, mineralog- 
ical and zodlogical works ; especially, among those non-botanical, his ‘‘ Mithridates,’ 
Zur., 1555, ‘‘seu de differentiis linguarum,” 8vo, called by ‘Mens the first research 
” 
