16 
INTRODUCTION TO BOTANY, 
new species : to each species he adds the Greek, German, 
.Dutch, French, and English name; the description, which 
is frequently obscure and insufficient ; the time of flower- 
ing, and the places in England where some of the rarer 
plants are to be found. To these are annexed figures. As 
Lobel had carefully studied the ancients, and had spent 
much time in practical botany, exploring France, Switzer- 
land, part of Germany and Italy, and various parts of 
England, the Adversaria is a work of much merit, and 
abounds with a deal of curious information. In 1576 he 
published “ Observationes, sive Stirpium Historiee, cui 
annexum est Adversariorum Volumen,” with 1486 figures. 
Some additions were afterwards made to these figures, and 
they were printed separately in music quarto, with an index 
in seven languages, which rendered them a popular book 
for many years. Lobel mentions several English botanists, 
as Edward Saint Loo, Esq. of Somersetshire ; Mr. Nas- 
myth, a surgeon ; Mr. De Franqueville, a merchant, par- 
ticularly fond of flowers ; Mr. Hugh Morgan, apothecary 
to Queen Elizabeth; and Mr. Wm. Coys, of Essex. All 
the three last had good gardens; that of Mr. Coys was 
well stored with exotic plants; and under his care, in 1604, 
the yucca first flowered in England. Lobel’s daughter 
married a Mr. James Coel, of Highgate, and, from the 
frequent mention that Lobel makes of that place in his 
last work, the “ Illustrationes,” it is probable that he 
spent the evening of his life with his son-in-law. 
Hitherto only the appearance of plants, as they appeared 
to a common observer, or their uses, or some equally un- 
scientific arrangement, had been followed, but, in 1583, 
Caesalpinus, an Italian physician, published his book De 
Plant is , in which he laid down the basis of a philosophical 
division of them, according to their fruit and seed, and 
which has been since extended and corrected by Ray, 
Hermann, Boerhaave, and Gsertner. This system of Cse- 
salpinus, although the first scientific one, is still valuable, 
and merits attention. A few years after the publication 
of Caesalpinus’s work, namely in 1597, was published the 
first edition of Gerarde’s Herbal. This work is in the 
main a translation of Dodonseus. Gerarde, although the 
Master of the Chirurgeons’ Company, was not sufficiently 
versed in Latin to make this translation himself, and 
thereof altered a manuscript translation of one Dr. Priest, 
which the latter had intended to publish, but died before 
he accomplished his purpose; and his papers falling into 
