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A RECENT DISCOVERY IN SIXTEENTH CENTURY BOTANY
By Professor Walther Rytz. Das Herbarium Felix Platters. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Botanik des XVI.Jahrhunderts. (verhandl.d.Naturforsch. Gesellschaft, in Basel, vol.xliv, Part 1) 222pp., 22 figures, 1933.
By Professor Walther Rytz. Pflanzenaquerei des Hans Weiditz aus dem Jahre 1629; die Originale zu Holzschnitten im Brunfels'schen Kräuterbuch. 44 pp., 15 coloured plates, Bern, 1936.

When, a few years ago, Professor Walther Rytz of the University of Bern was reviewing the collections in the Botanical Institute, he brought to light an herbarium in nine folio volumes, whose existence had been forgotten for more than a century. The history of these volumes, so far as it could then be traced, was that in 1806 they had been received by a bookseller in Bern from a dealer in Zurich who owed him four Louis d'Or which he was unable to pay; six years later the Bern dealer sold the nine folios for a single Louis d'Or to a botanist through whom they came into the possession of the Institute. Since the collection was obviously a remarkable one, and appeared to be of early date, Dr.Rytz examined it minutely. His researches and their results make a fascinating story, which is set out in fully illustrated form in the memoirs cited above. Of the nine folios, the herbarium occupies eight, while the ninth contains illustrations alone. The herbarium is far from complete; indeed there is reason to believe that about ten more volumes may await some future happy discovery. Even in its incomplete form the collection contains 813 species drawn from a wide geographical area; it includes plants from Switzerland, Italy, France, Spain and Egypt. It also represents activity of an adventurous kind, for there are specimens from Pilatus, Monte Baldo and the Mountains of Savoy - peaks arousing little emotion among the alpinists of today, but most formidable in the eyes of the men of earlier centuries. The dried plants are well preserved and arranged, and some of them have retained their colour admirably; this point must have been regarded as of special importance, for, in some campalulas the difficulty that the