1672 Wm Hughes writes The American Physician on the Medicinal Virtues of N. American Plants

This is one of the earliest works in English on the medicinal virtues of North American tropical plants.  William Hughes wrote "The American Physitian; or, a Treatise of the Roots, Plants, Trees, Shrubs, Fruit, Herbs &c. growing in the English Plantations in America. Describing the Place, Time, Names, Kindes, Temperature, Vertues & Uses of them, either for Diet, Physick, &c. Whereunto is added a Discourse of the Cacao-Nut-Tree, & the use of its Fruit; with all the ways of making of Chocolate. The like never extant before." It was published in London, by J.C. for W. Crook, 1672.

This book is "Based on first-hand observations made in the West Indies. Evidence suggests that Hughes began his career in 1651 with a privateering voyage to the West Indies, during which he traveled to Barbados, St. Kitts, Cuba, Jamaica & mainland Florida. He appears to have spent a good deal of time visiting British plantations on Jamaica & Barbados, where he observed & made descriptions of a large number of New World tropical plants including potatoes, yams, maize (‘the wheat of America’), bananas, avocadoes (‘Spanish pears’), chili peppers, watermelons, sugarcane, guavas, prickly pears, coconuts & manioc. Hughes’s work ‘contributed greatly to the spread of the American indigenous use of plants either for Meat or Medicine." – Wilson & Hurst, Chocolate as Medicine [2012] p. 55.”  The last third of Hughes’s book is devoted to the medicinal properties of chocolate, which he called the “American nectar.”

While little is known about Hughes (active 1665-83), he did leave evidence in his books, that he had worked at one time at Radley, in Warwickshire, & that he had traveled throughout England & to the vineyards in Europe. This book was written during his time in the West Indies. Hughes also wrote "The Compleat Vineyard," 1670 and "The Flower-garden," 1672.