130 Plant Description [ch. 



scattered about like stars, pleasant to behold. And when 

 the flowers begin to ripen, and are running to seed (the 

 seed is very small), the pedicel grows slender. But the 

 plant is an evergreen." 



In Gerard's ' Herball' of 1 597 the descriptions are seldom 

 sufficiently original to be of much interest. We may quote, 

 however, his account of the Potato flower (Text-fig. 60), 

 then so great a novelty that in his portrait (Plate XII) he 

 is represented holding a spray of it in his hand. It has, he 

 says, " very faire and pleasant flowers, made of one entire 

 whole leafe, which is folded or plaited in such strange sort, 

 that it seemeth to be a flower made of sixe sundrie small 

 leaves, which cannot be easily perceived, except the same 

 be pulled open. The colour whereof it is hard to expresse. 

 The whole flower is of a light purple color, stripped down 

 the middle of every folde or welt, with a light shew of 

 yellownes, as though purple and yellow were mixed togither : 

 in the middle of the flower thrusteth foorth a thicke fat 

 pointell, yellow as golde, with a small sharpe greene pricke 

 or point in the middest thereof." 



The plant descriptions by Valerius Cordus, which were 

 published after his death, are among the best produced in 

 the sixteenth century, but they are too lengthy for quotation 

 here. 



So far as the period with which we deal in this book 

 is concerned, the zenith of plant description may be said 

 to be reached in the 'Prodromes' of Gaspard Bauhin (1620), 

 in which a high level of terseness and accuracy is attained. 

 As an example we may translate his description of " Beta 

 Cretica semine aculeaio," of which his drawing is reproduced 

 in Text-fig. 62 : " From a short tapering root, by no means 

 fibrous, spring several stalks about 1 8 inches long : they 

 straggle over the ground, and are cylindrical in shape and 

 furrowed, becoming gradually white near the root with a 

 slight coating of down, and spreading out into little sprays. 

 The plant has but few leaves, similar to those of Beta 

 nigra, except that they are smaller, and supplied with long 

 petioles. The flowers are small, and of a greenish yellow. 

 The fruits one can see growing in large numbers close by 

 the root, and from that point they spread along the stalk, 

 at almost every leaf. They are rough and tubercled and 



