Hunt Institute Archives Text Discovery Platform

Page transcription

2
corollas turn brown on drying has been met by replacing them by imitations cut out of larkspur flowers! There are a number of inscriptions on the sheets, and all the information which can possibly be gleaned from these has been brought together and analysed by Dr. Rytz, who has also made a profound study of the paper used for mounting - a study which reveals no less than forty different watermarks. All this research leads directly to the conclusion that the collection was formed in the second half of the sixteenth century by some botanist who was in relation with Charles de l'Écluse(1525-1607) and Joachim Camerarius (1534-1598), from whom he received specimens. After a process of delicate detective work, too complex and detailed to be summarised here, Dr. Rytz decides that the herbarium was undoubtedly collected by Felix Platter, an eminent physician of Basle, who lived from 1556 to 1614. Fortunately the facts of Platter's life have been fully recorded and a contemporary portrait was available for reproduction.

From 1552 to 1557 he is known to have studied medicine at Montpellier, like so many botanists of his day - for instance Conrad Gesner, Jacques Palaichamps, Charles de l'Écluse, Jean Bauhin, Pierre Pena and Jean de l'Obel. In his diary of 1554 Platter speaks of collecting "viler kreuter, die ich in papier zierlich inmacht", so it is clear that he had already begun a herbarium soon after the middle of the sixteenth century. Dr. Rytz believes that all European herbaria can be traced back to the influence of Luca Ghini, from whom the "Father of British Botany", William Turner, learned to dry plants. Rondelet, Felix Platter's teacher at Montpellier, was also probably taught the art of herbarium-making by Ghini, and disseminated it among his pupils. The interchange of dried plants between savants played a very important part in the beginning of scientific systematics, and illustrations often seem to have been drawn from them. This is shown by the fact that in August 1563 Conrad Gesner wrote to Johannes Bauhin, "At this time I cannot occupy the artist with dried plants: he can scarcely now paint all the fresh and living examples: I put off the dried specimens to the winter, when there will be no opportunity of getting living ones". The oldest herbaria usually consisted