#john gerard

[vintagewildlife]

Smooth softshell turtle By: John Gerard From: Life Nature Library: Reptiles 1963

[glossahortensia]

Ego Borago gaudia semper ago

Borage brings joy, thanks to Pliny the Elder and overlooked Flemish botantist Rembert Dodoens.

Did you know that John Gerard was a filthy plagiarist? Me neither. Read about that and how to zhuzh up your red wine with some borage this week on the Glossa Hortensia Substack.

[uwmspeccoll]

It's Sweet Potato Awareness Month!

November is here and with it, Sweet Potato Awareness Month!  

Native to tropical regions of the Americas and domesticated at least 5,000 years ago, the sweet potato is a delightful member of the morning glory family. Not to be confused with yams, sweet potatoes produce long vines with heart-shaped leaves and flowers above ground and delicious starchy tubers sprawling beneath the dirt. It is said that Columbus and his crew were the first Europeans to encounter and taste sweet potatoes, and they have been a staple among the American diet ever since with the average per capita consumption around 4.4 pounds per year.  

In recognition of Sweet Potato Awareness Month, we’re looking at John Gerard’s Herball, or Generall Historie of Plantes. The book is his translation of a Latin version that was originally published in Flemish and includes some of Gerard’s original assertions and annotations from his own garden. Published in 1597 by the Queen's printer John Norton, it notably includes an example of the first English description of the potato! What Gerard describes as potatus or potatoes are in fact what we know today as sweet potatoes. Gerard’s lack of scientific knowledge led to misunderstandings about the plants he wrote about and criticism from his contemporaries. See our Science Saturday post for all the hot gossip about Gerard’s incompetencies and accusations of plagiarism. 

Despite the drama surrounding Gerard’s botanical authorship and because of the inclusion of over 1,000 plants including illustrations, habits, and uses, Herball was an exhaustive and highly used resource of its time. 

View other posts with our copy of Gerard's Herball.

-Jenna, Special Collections Graduate Intern

[archivist-dragonfly]

Book 402

Gerard’s Herball

John Gerard / Marcus Woodward

Spring Books 1964

John Gerard (c. 1545-1612), a surgeon and herbalist, first published his Herball in 1597, and it has a curious history. It was largely a plagiarized translation of an herbal published in 1554 by a Flemish physician and botanist named Rembert Dodoens. The book was then corrected and expanded by another gardener, Thomas Johnson, in 1633. Johnson’s version contained more than 2800 woodcuts and was about 1700 pages long. It was from this version that writer and naturalist Marcus Woodward distilled down to produce this concise 300-page volume. Sadly, this book is not aging well. Printed on cheap paper, the whole thing is foxed.

[historystudies]

spent the morning at the library gushing over Gerard’s beautiful Herbal (again) 😸💛 pics from my insta 

[seattlemysterybooks]

philsp.com

November-December 1931 issue

Seattle Mystery Bookshop

[iamafreeman]

A text from Generall Historie of Plantes by John Gerard, a drawing by John Ruskin

“The Violets called the blacke or purple violets, or March Violets of the garden, have a great prerogative about others, not only because the mind conceiveth a certain pleasure and recreation by smelling and handling those most oderiferous floures, but also for that very many by these violets receive ornament and comely grace; (…) and the recreation of the minde which is taken hereby cannot be but very good and honest; for they admonish and stirre up a man to that which is comely and honest; for floures thorugh their beauty, variety of colour, and exquisit forme, do bring to a liberall and gentle manly minde, the remembrance of honestie, comlinesse, and all kindes of vertues.”

J.G.

[vintagewildlife]

Hognosed snake shedding its skin By: John Gerard From: Life Nature Library: Reptiles 1963