Hunt Institute Archives Text Discovery Platform

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2
herbals of the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries. This plant was chosen
for special illustration because, after an early period in which its
healing powers were held in high esteem, it passed through a time
when its use was obsolete except in folk medicine, but it has now been
reinstated and has received medical and scientific recognition.

A study dealing with a more specialised theme is B.
Hryniewiecki's account of Anton Schneeberger (1530 - 1581) ein Schüler
Konrad Gesners in Polen (Veröffentlichungen des Geobot. Inst., Rübel in
Zürich. 13, 1938). Schneeberger belonged to a Bavarian family settled in
Zürich, but he himself spent most of his life in Poland. He compiled a
Catalogus Stirpium ... Latine et Polonice conscriptus. Krakau, 1557,
in which he identified the plants of Poland, and added the names in the
Polish vernacular. This little book, which is now an extreme rarity,
is the first of its kind dealing with the botany of Poland. It includes
432 plant names, of which 270 are wild Polish plants.
also falls under the heading of eighteenth-century Botany
A note on Hyoscyamus luteus, by R.F.Ockenden (Isis, 30: 273, 1939).
A certain plant described by Dodens as
Hyoscyamus luteus has been identified as Nicotiana rustica. This brief
paper reviews the evidence for and against this identification, and
concludes that it is doubtful.

A general work of another kind, the interest of which is
horticultural and archaeological as well as botanical, is S. Tolkowsky's
Hesperides. A History of the Culture and Use of citrus Fruits (London,
1938). This very fully illustrated and documented monograph gives the
history of the migrations of the orange, citron, lemon, lime, shaddock,
and grape fruit, from their original home in S.E.Asia. The evidence
drawn from representations of these fruits in pictures and other works of
art is shown to be particularly useful, since it avoids the uncertainties
as to the exact meaning of the names used at different periods, which
often minimise the value of references in literature.