Gerard’s Herball, or Generall Historie of Plantes

As early as 1596, botanist John Gerard (1545-1612) systematically listed the plants in his garden, creating the first comprehensive English-language plant directory. In 1597 his most important accomplishment, Herball, or Generall Historie of Plantes, was finally published. In the extended and revised edition, published in 1599, Gerard listed the long plant descriptions in an abbreviated form. Thus, long before Carl von Linné, the so-called “father of taxonomy,” Gerard had introduced a systematic classification of plants that was based on a terminology using one or two specifications. His work soon became one of the most widely circulated botany books in English during the seventeenth century. Except for the additions of several plants from his own garden and from North America, the text in many places relied on the work Stirpium historiae pemptades sex (1583) by Rembert Dodoens.