Outline of Botanical
Material Examined at the Cushing Memorial Library and Archives
1.
Pennybacker's Herbarium - Julian Pennybacker was a student in 1881 and
his work was probably directed by David Porter Smythe, physician at the
Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas at its initiation as an
institution (1876) and central figure for the initiation of the A&M
Botany program (more
info on Dr. Smythe).
2.
Carter, E. W. Herbarium - Collection of plant specimens from the
A&M campus, 1890. Material associated with the A&M
Department of Botany.
3. Keller, Henry.
Herbarium of the Most Important Grasses of the Field and the
Forest. Call No.: QK89 .K4 1876. Grass specimens from Europe with
descriptive information from the 1890s.
Herbals:
4.
Fuch's Herbal (Call No.:
580 F951n) by Leonhard Fuchs (German
- 1501-1566) one of the earliest (1st herbal produced about 1525)and
considered a landmark work with its beautiful illustrations (see 'Turkish
Cucumber' which, given flowser size, is probably a Cucurbita from digital
version at Yale Medical Library) and the Aboca
Museum.
5. Dodoens,
Rembert. QK41 .D648 1644
Early botanists were usually trained medical doctors, since the study
and practice of medicine required a thorough knowledge of plants and
their curative effects. Belgian botanist Rembert Dodoens (1517-1585)
studied medicine in Europe and was appointed court physician to two
Austrian emperors. He later served as professor of botany at Leiden
University in the Netherlands. Dodoens's experience as a
physician and his interest in the medical aspects of botany led him to
write 'A new herbal, or historie of plants'. In this book, he
took the
science of botany a step forward by arranging plants according to
selected characteristics, rather than alphabetically, as done in the
past and also incorporated many of Fuch's woodcuts along with some new
illustrations which include the first European reference to the
American sunflower (Helianthus annuus).
6.
Hill,
John , 1716-1775. The British herbal
: an history of plants and trees, natives of Britain, cultivated
for use, or raised for beauty. London : Printed for T.
Osborne and J. Shipton [etc.] , 1756. from the Aboca Museum:
John
Hall’s "British Herbal" is one of a series of popular English herbals
from the 18th century. It is initially published in weekly installments
in 1756 and is complete within a year. The following year the same work
is reprinted in a color volume that enjoys broad success. This interest
is due above all to its images and resulting didactic usefulness. In
each plate (75 in all), numerous illustrations are presented, often of
the same species in all of its varieties. We invite you to take a look
at the images on our
site. Hill himself has produced
the drawings as
well as, it would seem, the copper
engravings. Especially noteworthy is
the frontispiece depicting the Genius of Good Health receiving the
homage of the four continents which in turn will be given to the
English readers. The plants for "use" and those for "beauty" come from
the United Kingdom and, in small part, from the rest of the world. The
classification is binomial following Linnaeus’ example of a few
years
prior. The virtues of the plants are listed with additions and pleasant
commentary by the Author.
7. Gerard,
John. The Herball, or General Historie of Plantes, Call
No.: 581 G356h, 1636.
John Gerard (1545-1612) was a surgeon, well
traveled and a dedicated gardener. He grew over 1000 plants
mostly for seed. His herbal is largely based
on the earlier work of Dodoens. Gerard altered the classification
of plants and added a great deal from his personal observations. First
published in 1597, it was later corrected and reprinted in 1633
('Johnson' edition present at the Cushing Library). Even to this day,
amateurs calling themselves, "herbalists", freely plagiarize
material from Gerard's herbal.
In his work we see the old belief in the efficacy of herbs to treat not
only physical diseases but those of the mind and spirit. This belief is
shared by the greatest civilizations of antiquity. Gerard also
describes methods of aromatherapy involving the inhalation of volatile
oils, the absorption of these through the skin into the circulatory
system.
8. Parkinson,
John. Theatrum botanicum:
= The theater of plants. Or, An herball of a large extent, Call
No.: QK41 .P2 1640a
John Parkinson (1567-1650) was the last
of the great English herbalists. His books include Theatrum Botanicum
(The Theater of Plants) published in 1640 at the age of 73.
Parkinson's monumental Theatrum
Botanicum describes over 3800 plants and was the most complete
and aesthetically beautiful English treatise on plants of the day.
9. Linne, Carl von. Hortus Cliffortianus,
Call No.: QK98 .L77
In 1736, on a visit to the house of the botanist
Johannes Burman (1706-1779), Clifford was introduced to an
up-and-coming young Swedish botanist, Carl Linnaeus, who was living and
working there. Linnaeus, who was to become one of the most noted
natural historians of all time, later visited Clifford's garden and
impressed him with his botanical knowledge. Clifford was most keen to
employ Linnaeus at the Hartekamp and, with the inducement of a volume
of Sir Hans Sloane's 'Natural History of Jamaica' (a copy also present
at the Cushing, representing the 2,000,000th accession by the Evans
Library), persuaded Burman to let Linnaeus go and join him as his
physician and horticulturist - Clifford had a tendency to hypochondria
and was no doubt pleased to have a physician on his doorstep. And so in
1735 Linnaeus started his 'dream job' of supervising the hothouses and
naming specimens and classifying them according to his own system.
During his stay he was to produce an important botanical work which is
of value to taxonomists and historians to this day, the Hortus Cliffortianus, in which he
described many new species from living and dried specimens in
Clifford's possession.
Hortus
Cliffortianus contains a number of illustrations, including this
baroque frontispiece (left) by Jan Wandelaar (1690-1759). Its
symbolism, includes a young Apollo with Linnaeus's features, casting
aside the shroud of darkness (ignorance).
This work was commissioned by Clifford as a
catalogue of the plants in his garden and herbarium. Linnaeus
arranged the plants according to his own sexual system, classifying
them into groups based on the numbers and form of their male and female
parts. Each species was allocated to a genus, and given a short
phrase-name (pre-binomial) in Latin, describing the features which
served to distinguish one species from another. Linnaeus also included
synonyms of earlier authors, distributional information, and sometimes
a short description. The significance of these entries lies in the fact
that when Linnaeus, 15 years later, introduced the consistent use of
binomial nomenclature in his Species Plantarum (1753), he took many of
his species concepts direct from the accounts in this work.
Folio Editions:
10. Flora de la Real Expedicion Botanica del
Nuevo Reino de Granada. Publicada bajo los auspicios de los
Gobiernos de Espana y Colombia y merced a la colaboracion entre
los Institutos de Cultura Hispanica de Madrid y Bogota. (2 items
taken from the Cushing collection of the full set - Cucurbits and
Passionflowers, Call No.: QK265 .R4 t.27, Call
No.: QK265 .R4 t.45, pt. 1.
MUTIS, Jose Celestino (moo-tiss), Spanish botanist,
born in Cadiz, 6 April, 1732; died in Santa Fe de Bogote, 12 September,
1808. After studying mathematics he went through the medical course at
the College of San Fernando, in Cadiz, was graduated at Seville, and
appointed in 1757 professor of anatomy in Madrid. In this city he
became acquainted with Linnaeus, who later called him "phytologorum
americanorum princeps," and named several plants in his honor. Mutis
accompanied Don Pedro Mesia de la Cerda as his physician in 1760 to his
viceroyalty of New Granada. He was appointed professor of mathematics
in the College of Nuestra Sefora del Rosario, and was the first to
teach, in the viceroyalty, the Copernican system, which had been
prohibited by the Spanish government. Desiring to examine the plants of
the hot region, and to visit the silver-mines of Mariquita, he left
Bogota and resided first in La Montuosa between Giron and Pamplona, and
from 1777 till 1782 in Real del Sapo and Mariquita. At La Montuosa he
began his "Flora de Nueva Granada," on which he bestowed forty years of
labor, but which remained unfinished at his death. Mutis was the first
to discover in New Granada and distinguish the various species of
cinchona or Peruvian bark. (more info on Mutis)
11. Rosser, Celia and George, Alexander. The
Banksias, Call No.: QK 495 .P957 R67 (more info on the
genus and Sir Joseph).
