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)

• Latin had no words for plant parts that Theophrastus describes; made them up (148)

Apuleius herbal in Cotton Vitellius C III (~1000-1066)

• 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

Albertus Magnus, De vegetabilibus (~1256)

• indirectly copied Theophrastus
• believed in the soul of plants
• mandrake illustration, male and female, on pg 145

"In his opinion, neither sexes nor sexual processes existed in the plant world; he thought all plants were of one sex, with male and female characters combined in the same plant. He used those words "male" and "female", but only in the sense of distinguishing between plants with particular characteristics. "Male" plants had narrow leaves, were hard, dry, and rough, and bore small fruits and seeds. His "female" plants are relatively broad-leaved, soft, moist, smooth; they produce larger seeds and fruits than male plants." (144)

Konrad von Megenberg, Buch der Natur (written 1349-1351, printed beginning 1478 in Augsburg)

• digital edition of manuscript version: [[1]]
• digital edition of 1499 printing: [[2]]
• first illustration of plants in books; Pavod has terrible things to say about it, not the least being that the woodcut is "catastrophically awful" (150) -- but in fact it's quite beautiful

Maria Boas on woodcuts, The Scientific Renaissance: were copied from manuscripts, meant to illustrate the text, not nature