The second part of Turner’s Herbal is dedicated to his old patron, Thomas Lord Wentworth, and the complete work, including the third part, to Queen Elizabeth.[69] In the preface to this last he reminds the queen of a conversation he had had with her in Latin eighteen years before, at the Duke of Somerset’s house, when he was physician to that nobleman. It is in this preface also that he criticises the foreign herbalists; though he has learnt much from them, they had much to learn from him, “as their second editions maye testifye.” He claims that in the first part of his herbal he taught “the truth of certeyne plants which these above-named writers (Matthiolus, Fuchsius, Tragus and Dodoneus) either knew not at al or ellis erred in them greatlye.... And because I would not be lyke unto a cryer yt cryeth a loste horse in the marketh, and telleth all the markes and tokens that he hath, and yet never sawe the horse, nether coulde knowe the horse if he sawe him: I wente into Italye and into diverse partes of Germany, to knowe and se the herbes my selfe.”
The book owes much of its charm to its vivid descriptions of the plants, and the fascinating and unexpected details he gives us about them. The comparison of dodder, for instance, to “a great red harpe strynge,” is a happy touch which it is impossible to forget. “Doder groweth out of herbes and small bushes as miscelto groweth out of trees. Doder is lyke a great red harpe strynge and it wyndeth about herbes foldyng mych about them and hath floures and knoppes one from an other a good space.... The herbes that I have marked doder to growe most in are flax and tares.”
These accurate observations and careful descriptions are characteristic of the writer, and recall similar touches in the Saxon herbals. For example, he records that the stamens of the Madonna lily have a different smell from the flower itself, and that the berries of the bay tree are almost, but not quite, round. There is only space to quote the following:—
“The lily hath a long stalk and seldom more than one, howbeit it hath somtyme II. It is II or III cubites hyghe. It hath long leves and somthyng of the fashion of the great satyrion. The flour is excedyng white and it hath the forme or fashion of a long quiver, that is to say, smal at the one end and byg at the other. The leves of the floures are full of crestes, and the overmost ends of the leves bowe a little backwarde and from the lowest parte within come forth long small yelow thynges lyke thredes of another smelle than the floures are of. The roote is round and one pece groweth hard to another allmoste after the maner of the roote of Garleke, but that the clowes in the lily are broder.”
“The leaves of the Bay tree are alwayes grene and in figure and fashion they are lyke unto periwincle. They are long and brodest in the middest of the lefe. They are blackishe grene namely when they are olde. They are curled about the edges, they smell well. And when they are casten into the fyre they crake wonderfully. The tre in England is no great tre, but it thryveth there many partes better and is lustier than in Germany. The berries are allmoste round but not altogether. The kirnell is covered with a thick black barke which may well be parted from the kirnell.”
“Blewbottel groweth in ye corne, it hath a stalke full of corners, a narrow and long leefe. In the top of the stalke is a knoppy head whereupon growe bleweflowers about midsummer. The chylder use to make garlandes of the floure. It groweth much amonge Rye wherefore I thinke that good ry in an evell and unseasonable yere doth go out of kinde in to this wede.”
“Pennyroyal.—It crepeth much upon the ground and hath many lytle round leves not unlyke unto the leves of merierum gentil but that they are a little longer and sharper and also litle indented rounde about, and grener than the leves of meriurum ar. The leves grow in litle branches even from the roote of certayn ioyntes by equall spaces one devyded from an other. Where as the leves grow in litle tuftes upon the over partes of the braunches.... Pennyroyal groweth much, without any setting, besyd hundsley [Hounslow] upon the heth beside a watery place.”
Of camomile he writes: “It hath floures wonderfully shynynge yellow and resemblynge the appell of an eye ... the herbe may be called in English, golden floure. It will restore a man to hys color shortly yf a man after the longe use of the bathe drynke of it after he is come forthe oute of the bath. This herbe is scarce in Germany but in England it is so plenteous that it groweth not only in gardynes but also VIII mile above London, it groweth in the wylde felde, in Rychmonde grene, in Brantfurde grene.... Thys herb was consecrated by the wyse men of Egypt unto the sonne and was rekened to be the only remedy of all agues.”
Unlike modern authorities, Turner contends that our English hyssop is the same plant as that mentioned in the Bible, and he also describes a species which does not now exist. “We have in Sumershire beside ye cōmē Hysop that groweth in all other places of Englande a kinde of Hysop that is al roughe and hory and it is greater muche and stronger then the cōmen Hysop is, som call it rough Hysop.” Another plant which seems to have disappeared and which, he states, no other writer describes, is “the wonderful great cole with leaves thrise as thike as ever I saw any other cole have. It hath whyte floures and round berryes lyke yvy. This herbe groweth at douer harde by the Sea-syde. I name it the Douer cole because I founde it first besyde Douer.” Incidentally he mentions samphire also as growing at Dover.
It is interesting to find that Turner identifies the Herba Britannica of Dioscorides and Pliny (famed for having cured the soldiers of Julius Cæsar of scurvy in the Rhine country) with Polygonum bistorta, which he observed plentifully in Friesland, the scene of Pliny’s observations. This herb is held by more modern authorities to be Rumex aquations (great water dock).