“This wort, which is named radiolus, by another name everfern, is like fern; and it is produced in stony places, and in old house steads; and it has on each leaf two rows of fair spots, and they shine like gold.”
Text-fig. 56. “Cardamomum” = ? Solanum dulcamara L., Bittersweet [Ortus Sanitatis, Mainz, 1491].
The group of late fifteenth-century herbals which we discussed in Chapter II—the Latin and German Herbarius and the Hortus Sanitatis—are alike in giving very brief and inadequate accounts of the characters of the plants enumerated, although their descriptions often have a certain naïve charm. It is scarcely worth while to give actual examples of their methods. It will perhaps suffice to quote a few specimens from the English ‘Grete Herball[25],’ which is a work of much the same class. The Wood Sorrel[26] is dealt with as follows: “This herbe groweth in thre places, and specyally in hedges, woodes and under walles sydes and hath leves lyke iii leved grasse and hath a soure smell as sorell, and hath a yelowe flowre.” As another example we may cite the Chicory, which is described as having “croked and wrythen stalkes, and the floure is of ye colour of the skye.” Of the Waterlilies, we receive a still more generalised account: “Nenufar is an herbe that groweth in water, and hath large leves and hath a floure in maner of a rose, the rote thereof is called treumyan and is very bygge. It is of two maners. One is whyte, and another yelowe.” Occasionally we meet with a hint of more detailed observation. For instance, the coloured central flower in the umbel of the Carrot is mentioned, though in terms that sound somewhat strange to the modern botanist. We read that it “hath a large floure and in the myddle therof a lytell reed prycke.”
It is somewhat remarkable that Banckes’ Herbal, though originally published a year earlier than the first edition of the Grete Herball, shows a slight but distinct superiority in the matter of description (see p. 38). Perhaps this is to be connected with the fact that Banckes’ Herbal is without illustrations. But even if we allow that the descriptions in Banckes’ Herbal occasionally seize on salient features, it must be admitted that they still leave a great deal to the imagination. As two typical examples, which are perhaps as good as any in the book, we may take those of Tutsan[27] and of Shepherd’s Purse. Of the first the herbalist writes, “This herbe hathe leves somdele reed lyke unto ye leves of Orage. And this herbe hathe senowes on his leves as hath Plantayne, and it hathe yelowe floures and bereth blacke berys, and it groweth in dry woodes.” Of Shepherd’s Purse he says, “This herbe hathe a small stalke and full of braunches and ragged leves and a whyte flowre. The coddes therof be lyke a purse.”
Text-fig. 57. “Pionia” = Peony [Arnaldus de Villa Nova, Tractatus de virtutibus herbarum, 1499].
The ‘Herbarum vivæ eicones’ of Otto Brunfels (1530) was the first herbal illustrated with drawings, which are throughout both beautiful and true to nature. The descriptions, on the other hand, are quite unworthy of the figures, being mostly borrowed from earlier writers. The wonderful excellence of the wood-blocks, with which the German Fathers of Botany enriched their books, was, in one sense, an actual hindrance to the development of the art of plant description. Since the pencil of the draughtsman could represent every subtlety in the characteristic form of a plant, the botanist might well be excused for thinking that to take the trouble to set beside the drawing a precise, verbal description of the plant in question was a work of supererogation. However, in another sense the draughtsman indirectly helped the cause of scientific accuracy in what, for want of a better expression, may be called word-painting. There is no doubt that constant critical examination of the artist’s work must have tended to educate the eye of the botanist who supervised his efforts, and to increase his perception of delicate shades of difference or similarity of form, which he might never have noticed, or attempted to express in words, if the draughtsman had not, as it were, lent him his trained eyesight.