Pavord 2005

in general: entire book has progressionist view of botany, botanical history; medieval period consistently seen as stupid, backwards; any thinker who doesn't attempt to identify plants within the "natural order of things" (as we've come to do through botany) is seen as not making any "progress"

"Theophrastus started with a concept of the plant as an animal with its feet in the air and its mouth in the ground. In some ways, he could make the analogy work: like animals, plants could be described in terms of their veins, nerves and flesh." (23)

Apuleius herbal in Cotton Vitellius C III

• mandrake description, pg. 118 of Pavord
• again, Anglo-Saxon scribe is ridiculed by Pavord: "it's irritating, the blindness of these medieval scribes" (120)
• ink used to illustrate the plants is eating at the vellum -- vegetable inks eating plant materials