A Chronology of Plants, Herbals, Medicinal Herbs, & Botanical Gardens AD to 1614
AD
c32 Spikenard, a fragrant emollient made from Nardostachys jatamansi, is highlighted in a Biblical episode in Mark 14:3-6. A believer is chastised by other supporters for anointing Christ with the expensive spikenard, which could have been sold for charity. By the time of Pliny [See c70] the increase in direct Roman trade with India lowered the cost of spikenard to one-third of the value it held before Roman fleets began to sail with the monsoons.
c32 Biblical account of Palm Sunday. The date palm has long been considered the tree of life in deserts of the Old World.
C40 The Greek merchant Hippalus is said to have been the 1st to realize that the winds from seasonal monsoons could power sailing vessels between Egypt & the pepper-producing Malabar coast of India. This led to extensive development of Roman fleets, which captured the Indian spice trade from overland routes controlled by Arab traders. An account of this trade is recorded in The Periplus..., a treatise known from about 90 A.D.
c50 Dioscorides (the Father of Medical Botany) authored his Materia Medica , a compilation of descriptions & medicinal uses for plants, including about 650 different species. As the most widely known western botanical text during the middle ages, Dioscorides’ work became the basis for most early herbals. With an exp&ing awareness of the natural world in the 16th-century, herbalists began to make their own descriptions of plants, & at last Dioscorides’s influence waned.
c70 Pliny (Caius Plinius Secundus, A.D. 23-79), in his compilation called a Natural History , discussed about 1000 different plants. Well known throughout the middle ages, Pliny’s book constituted a major source of information on plants. Primarily an historian & storyteller, Pliny related accounts uncritically, even fancifully. Once original, rarer source documents were discovered & printed, errors in Pliny’s account became more obvious. Still the work remains valuable; it is through Pliny that we know the exact costs of many products, & that farmers alternated crops, such as beans & spelt.
79 On 24 August, Pompeii was buried by the volcanic eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. Walnuts were left at a table, uneaten by priests whose meal was terminally interrupted.
c90 John predicted the fall of Rome (disguised as Babylon,) describing how the merchants of that city would mourn the loss of their cinnamon & frankincense.
105 In this year, according to tradition, the 1st paper was made. Paper maker, Ts’ai Lun, used the inner bark of paper mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera).
280 Roman Emperor Probus rescinded the edict of Domitian, which had prohibited planting grape vineyards in outlying provinces.
290 A Peruvian Moche warrior priest was interred/entombed with gold & silver jewelry shaped like peanuts.
335 Cloves were delivered to Constantine - the 1st record of this spice in the West. The source of cloves, flower buds of Syzygium aromaticum, had been known in China for centuries. Etiquette in the Han Court demand that a person received by the emperor hold a clove in his mouth to sweeten the breath.
c350 During the middle ages popular herbals of very little scientific content appeared. They contained no observations beyond those taken from Dioscorides. The various versions of Apuleius’ herbals were unfortunate simplifications both in text & in accuracy of plant illustrations. The printed edition of Apuleius (1483), is considered to be the 1st printed herbal.
400 Haric (Alaric) the Goth demanded 3000 lbs of black pepper as part of the ransom for the city of Rome. His assaults on the city continued, & Rome fell on 24 August 410 after the third siege.
500 Coffee, apparently native to the mountains of Ethiopia, was known as a beverage in Arabia. It was 1st thought to have been roasted in the 1450's, with drinking of brewed coffee spreading to Egypt by 1510, to Constantinople in 1550, to Venice in 1616, to England in 1650, & to Holland in 1690. By 1600, coffee was grown in India, Ceylon, & the East Indies. Cultivation moved to the West Indies & Brasil via propagation from a single tree that was grown in Amsterdam. [See 1706]
548 Cosmas Indicopleustes wrote his Topographia Christiana, describing the harvesting & processing of black pepper (Piper nigrum.)
593 Tea is said to have been taken to Japan, where it assumed a major role in Buddhist ritual.
c600 Mohammed was partial owner of a shop in Mecca, trading in plant products such as myrrh, frankincense, & spices.
610 Papermaking is said to have been 1st introduced from China to Japan.
632 Mohammed’s death. His injunction against consumption of alcohol had immediate impact, such that within 10 years of his demise, drinking was already banned in Arabia & much of the new Islamic empire (Egypt, Libya, Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, & Armenia.)
746 The Dutch & Germans began adding hops to beer. The British would not use hops until after 1524. Hops adds its own unique flavor to beer, & is said to retard spoilage.
775 Charlemagne gave the upper slopes of the hill of Corton to the Abbey of Saulieu, where vineyards have a great history. Wine from this zone is called Corton-Charlemagne.
812 Charlemagne ordered imperial farms in Germany to grow anise, fennel, fenugreek, & flax.
867 King Charles the Bald granted land on the Loire at Chablis to the Chapter of St. Martin at Tours for a vineyard. Because the Loire connects to the Seine, this wine became well known in Paris.
900 People in Flanders & Zeeland began systems of dikes to exclude the sea from lowland areas to create land for agriculture. In response to rising population, the same treatment began in Holland some 300 years later.
1000 Many plants, including spinach & olive, arrived in Spain with the Moors.
1150 Paper was 1st produced in Europe - introduced to Spain by the Moors.
1057 Chinese Emperor Jen Tsung ordered a new national pharmacopeia be written. More than 1000 drawings were received in Hangchow & the treatment covered over 1000 plants.
1180 A consortium of pepper wholesale merchants, a pepperers’ guild, was founded in London. Later this organization merged with a spicers’ guild. In 1429 the spicers’ guild became The Grocers’ Company (the word "grocer" from vendre en gros, French for wholesale.) By charter, this organization managed trade in spices, drugs, & dyestuffs; guild members held exclusive right to "garble" - which meant to select & process spices & medicinal products.
c1200 Opium poppy, Papaver somniferum, was introduced to China.
1300 Villanova detailed Poems for Health, recommending nut oils for cooking.
1455 Gutenberg printed a Bible, the 1st produced utilizing moveable type. His innovation proved of immediate significance. Ancient texts, available previously only in hand scribed versions, would now be printed. Publication of new herbals & simples advanced quickly.
1471 The Opus Ruralium Commodorum was published, based on a manuscript written a century earlier by Peitro Creszenzi of Bologna. Compiled from works of Varro, Columnella, & Cato, with an admixture of Creszenzi’s own thoughts, this book was translated into various languages & read extensively. It could be considered the foundation of modern western gardening.
1480 The dry garden at the monastery of Ryoan, in Kyoto, was built during this decade, apparently reaching completion by 1490.
1487 Diaz worked his way around Africa in search of spice & trade for the Portuguese.
1492 Columbus left Spain, sailing west to search for new routes & sources for importing spices from the East. He returned with corn (Zea mays) & other crop plants.
1493 Sugar cane was introduced to Santo Domingo during Columbus’ second voyage. The crop was soon established & a settler named Aguilón is reported to have harvested cane juice by 1505. By 1516 the 1st processed sugar was shipped from Santo Domingo to Spain. Soon afterward, Portugal began importing sugar from Brazil. (Sugar cane would become a driving force for the slave trade.) On this voyage, Columbus also carried seed of lemon, lime, & the sweet orange to Hispaniola. He returned to Europe with pineapple.
1493-94 Peter Martyr wrote that Columbus brought "pepper more pungent than that from the Caucasus." These capsicum peppers were 1st introduced in Spain, but were known in England by 1548, & grown in Central Europe as early as 1585.
1494 Columbus introduced cucumbers & other vegetables from Europe to Haiti.
1497 Vasco de Gama opened Portuguese trade around the Cape of Good Hope. Having left Lisbon on 8 July 1497, under orders from the King of Portugal, he followed the route (discovered by Diaz 11 years before) around the Cape of Good Hope. On 20 May 1498 he arrived at Calicut, on the west coast of India, marking the 1st voyage to that region from Europe. This trip & the subsequent voyage of Cabral broke the Venetian monopoly on the sugar & the spice trade established across the Arabian peninsula.
1499 In his Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, Francesco Colonna described dream-like scenes (some illustrated) of mansion, forest, & garden that influenced writers, artists, architects, & designers well into the 17th century.
c1500 Bean & lima bean, crops native to America, became known to Europeans. By the late 1700's the lima bean was grown in Africa, Europe, India, & the Philippines. By this year also, the sweet potato (native to South America) had been taken to Spain, where it was in cultivation at mid-century. This root was soon cultivated in China, India, & Malaya.
1500 The native population of Brazil numbered about 2.5 million before European settlement. At the close of the 20th century, that population base was less than 200,000.
1502 Death of Murata Shuko (b 1423), who shaped the Japanese tea ceremony as essentially Buddhist, as the way of tea (chado).
1502 The island of St. Helena was discovered by J. de Nova, & soon became a garden site for cultivating fresh provisions to break the several month voyage between Portugal & Mozambique. At the end of the century, James Lancaster would take with him bottled lemon juice & "by this means the Generall cured many of his men, & preserved the rest."
1502 During Columbus’s 4th voyage (as written in an account by his son, Ferdinand), the explorers encountered & captured a Mayan trading canoe on 15 August. Among the goods carried by the Mayans were seeds of cacao (which Ferdinand called almonds) that seemed to hold great value: "For their provisions they had such roots & grains as are eaten in Hispaniola [these would have been maize & manioc], & a sort of wine made out of maize which resembled English beer; & many of those almonds which in New Spain [Mexico] are used for money. They seemed to hold these almonds at a great price; for when they were brought on board ship together with their goods, I observed that when any of these almonds fell, they all stooped to pick it up, as if an eye had fallen."
1505 Enslaved Africans were 1st brought to the New World. Trade in slaves would steadily rise, driven at 1st by gold mining, the harvest of natural resources, & increasing agricultural demand. In the end, at least 9.5 million African slaves were brought to the New World, 2.5 million of whom were deployed in the Caribbean where they worked substantially in the sugar industry.
1505 The Portuguese settled Ceylon. Their exploitation of the cinnamon forests led to a system of slavery & a monopoly on trade in this spice.
1506 A Suzhou author described Chinese potted landscapes (pinjing, or pan jing) in the following manner: "The people of Tiger Hill are excellent at planting strange flowers & rare blossoms in a dish. A dish with pine or antique flowering plum, when placed on a table, is pure, elegant & delightful."
1511 Western explorers discovered the Molucca Islands (the Spice Islands) to be the source of cloves. Eventually one tree planted by Pierre Poivre parented orchards in Madagascar & Zanzibar. These countries nearly provide the world supply today.
1511 Having won battles over Muslim forces, the Portuguese advanced their control over spice producing areas of India, Ceylon, Java, Sumatra - & by 1514, the Spice Islands. For nearly 100 years great Portuguese wealth would flow from control of the spice trade. [See 1605]
1513 Affonso de Albuquerque communicated with the Portuguese monarch: "If your Highness would believe me I would order poppies...to be sown in all the fields of Portugal & command opium to be made...& the laborers would gain much also, & people of Indi are lost without it, if they do not eat it."
1514 Alvarez commanded the 1st European vessel to reach China by sea. In the region of Canton the Portuguese crew encountered oranges superior in sweetness & fragrance even to those brought from India & Ceylon.
1515 “The Malay merchants say that God made Timur for Sandlewood & Banda for mace, & the Moluccas for cloves, & that this merchandise is not known anywhere else in the world except in these places; & I asked & enquired very diligently whether they had this merchandise anywhere else & everyone said not” - the introductory quotation in The Spice Route, taken from a translation of The Suma Oriental by Tomé Pires.
1516 The banana was introduced to the New World from Africa.[See 1804]
1518 Duarte Barbosa, in An Account of the Countries bordering on the Indian Ocean & their Inhabitants described sweet oranges in Ceylon. A later book by Garcia da Orta, 1562, one of the earliest European books printed in India, commented that the oranges of Ceylon "are the best of the whole world in regard to sweetness & abundance of juice." Prior to the discovery that Asia harbored sweet oranges, Europeans considered citrus more valuable for fragrant oils. [See 1550]
1519 Magellan began his circumnavigation of South America, exploring new trade routes. Nearly 3 years later, on 8 September 1522, the journey ended when 18 of the original 250 crewmen (lacking Magellan, who died on the isle of Mactan in April, 1521) returned to Seville, with 1 of the 5 ships that started (only the Victoria made the entire voyage). Even given such great losses, the cloves (26 tons), sacks of nutmeg, mace, & cinnamon, & load of sandalwood returned to Spain from the very last legs of the voyage covered the entire expedition cost. The returning captain, Sebastian del Cana, was given a pension & awarded a coat of arms that displays two cinnamon sticks, three nutmegs, & 12 cloves. A journal detailing exploits of this voyage was maintained by Antonio Pigafetta, gentleman-adventurer, & published subsequently as Primo Viaggio Intorno al Mondo.[See 1522]
1521 Hernando Cortés conquered Mexico. While on reconnaissance in southeastern Mexico, his soldiers were the 1st Europeans to discover the delights of the Aztecan spice, vanilla. Among the people in Cortés’ party was a free, black African, Juan Garrido. At his farm in Coyoacán, Garrido later would become the 1st European to plant wheat in Mexico
1522 Pigaphetta, following 3 years on the Magellan voyage to the Moluccas, wrote that "in all the islands of the Moluccas there are to be found cloves, ginger, sago which is wood-bread, rice, ...pomegranates, both sweet & sour oranges, lemons..." He also wrote that: "the betel-nut is a fruit which they keep chewing together with flowers of jasmine & orange," & "the cannibals of the islands...eat no other part of the human body but the heart, uncooked but seasoned with the juice of oranges & lemons."
1524 Representatives of Spain & Portugal met to review maps & charts in an attempt to agree over ownership of the Spice Islands (first controlled by Portuguese in 1511); 5 years later Portugal paid 350,000 gold ducats to Spain for relinquishment of claims.
1525 Rycharde Banckes published his English Herbal with the introductory phrase: "Here begynneth a newe mater, the whiche sheweth & treateth of ye vertues & proprytes of herbes, the whiche is called an Herball"
1526 Peter Treveris published The Grete Herbal, an English translation of a popular French herbal. The book appears to be the 1st illustrated herbal published in English.
1526 Oviedo reported having often transported sweet potato (batata or camote in Spanish) from the Caribbean to Castile. During the 16th century, Portuguese traders carried the crop to all of their shipping ports, & the sweet potato was quickly adopted from Africa to India & Java. To this day, confusion exists between the sweet potato (Ipomea) & the true yam (Dioscorea). Confusion began with the 1st Western encounter with the plant during Columbus voyages, when sweet potato was introduced to the Spanish court as similar to the yam, a plant native to West Africa & already familiar to Europeans. A member of the morning glory family, sweet potato originated from South America & the Caribbean.
1530 Brunfels published Herbarium Vivae Eicones, the 1st newly written & printed botanical book/herbal.
1531 A decree issued in Castile under the Spanish Crown established good terms for loans to allow purchase of slaves by settlers for establishment of sugar mills
1533 A professorship in botany, created at the university in Padua, established plant study as a discipline separate from medicine. That position was filled by Francesco Bonafede. The following year Luca Ghini became a lecturer in botany at Bologna.[See 1543; 1545]
1533 Wen Zhengming authored an album including a lengthy written Record as well as numerous paintings & poems documenting the Garden of the Unsuccessful Politician in China’s garden city of Suzhou. Codifying the history of one of the world’s most famous built landscapes, his concluding descriptive statement gave a panoramic view of the site: "In all there is one hall, one tower, six pavilions & twenty-three studios, balustrades, ponds, terraces, banks & torrents, making a total of thirty-one, by name the Garden of the Unsuccessful Politician."
1536 Spaniards completed the conquest of Peru, soon utilizing potatoes as cheap food for sailors. The earliest English publication describing potatoes was Gerard’s 1597 herbal. By 1700 potatoes were important in Germany, & by 1800, they were important in Russia.
1538 The word "carnation" 1st appeared as a royal reminder (coronation) of this plant’s ancient Greek name Diosanthos, which translates as "the flowers of Zeus." The scientific name for these plants, Dianthus caryophyllus, yields yet more etymological charm. We are reminded of its clove-scented flowers through the specific epithet (caryophyllus). The term for clove spice comes to us from the Arabic (quaranful) to the Greek (karyophillon) to the Latin (caryophyllus).
1541 Jacques Cartier introduced cabbage to Canada on his third voyage. The 1st written record of cabbage in the US is 1669.
1541 A book to promote cooking with sugar was available in Venice. Later Nostradamus wrote the 1st French book on this topic.
1542 Fuchs published De Historia Stirpium Commentarii. By 1543 he had published the German version, New Kreüterbuch. Illustrations for his herbals were based on studies of living plants, rather than on the simplified images that had become common in various scribed editions of the Apuleius herbal. The text, however, was taken essentially from Dioscorides.
1543 One of the earliest botanical gardens, a garden of "simples," was established by Luca Ghini at the University in Pisa - on a site different from that of the present garden.
1545 A botanical garden was established at Padua, Italy.
1545 A Nahuatl document of commodity prices in Tlaxcala estimated values based on cacao beans: "one good turkey hen is worth 10 full cacao beans, or 120 shrunken cacao beans; a turkey egg is worth 3 cacao beans; a small rabbit is worth 30; an avocado newly picked is worth 3 cacao beans; one large tomato will be equivalent to a cacao bean; a tamale is exchanged for a cacao bean."
1550 Introduced to China by 1550, corn grew so quickly in importance that the crop became a significant factor in the 18th century increase in the Chinese population, particularly in inland areas where rice was not prolific.
1550-54 By this year, tomatoes (introduced from the New World) were regularly consumed in Italy.
1550 Damiao de Goes described orange exports from Portugal to Spain. The date follows very quickly on the tradition that J. de Castro, on returning from India, brought the sweet orange & planted it at his country home of Penh Verde. That tree was the origin of all Portuguese sweet oranges.
1551 Jerome Bock published his Kreüterbuch, one of the 1st herbals to include the author’s own plant descriptions from 1st-hand observations - rather than copying the work of Dioscorides.
1554 First written record of the tomato. Italians grew the plant by about 1550. Thomas Jefferson was the 1st kbown American to grow tomatoes, in 1781. Tomatoes were eaten in New Orleans by 1812. George W. Carver dedicated himself to promoting the tomato, in addition to his work on peanuts.
1554 Though the 1st description in Europe of kohlrabi was in this year, it was not grown commercially (that was accomplished in Ireland) until 1734. Records of this vegetable in the US date from 1806.
1556-59 Tobacco cultivation began in Europe with an importation of seed by André Thevet. Introduction to Europe is reported as 1559 by De Wolf.
1558 An illustration published by Thevet documented the harvesting & processing of cashew by natives in Brasil. (Other contemporary writers also had discussed the value of this native American tree.) Within a decade, Portuguese traders had introduced the cashew to India, where it remains an important crop. Its value lies not simply in the cashew nut, but also in the juicy peduncle (the stem, called mara on in Latin America) on which the nut-bearing fruit forms. That fleshy peduncle, resembling a quince or apple, provides astringent, watery refreshment. Moreover, once fermented it yields cashew wine & brandy. North Americans, very aware of the asymmetric roasted cashew seed, are often unfamiliar with the juicy, fruit-like peduncle. Never make the mistake of eating raw cashew nuts taken from a fresh mara on. The shell (the real fruit) surrounding the seed is invested with toxic compounds that are dispelled with roasting. The cashew tree is related to the mango (Mangifera indica), which is native to the hills of Assam. Many people are allergic to the foliage of the mango, though they may not be affected by the fruit.
1559 Perhaps the 1st mention of tea in western literature, by Giambattista Ramusio, in Navigazioni et viaggi.
1559 In this year Conrad Gesner recorded the earliest known instance of a tulip flowering in cultivation in Europe, in the garden of Johann Heinrich Herwart of Augsburg. Gesner is said to have received these bulbs himself from Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, ambassador from Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I to the Ottoman court of Suleiman the Magnificent. Busbecq reported to Gesner that the highly colored flowers were called tulipam by their Turkish admirers, though the native word for these plants is lalé. Confusion as to the name could have had something to do with the turban (dulban) shape of the bulbs & flowers.
1560 Spanish settlers planted three olive saplings in Lima, Peru. An olive from this original introduction was later taken to Chile. This simple introduction formed the basis of today’s South American olive industry.
1561 The posthumously published work of Valerius Cordus established wholly new standards for systematic plant description. His was the 1st work to uniformly address all aspects of a plant, in standard sequence & parallel treatment.
1564 The European grape vine was imported to California via Mexico, brought by priests.
1568 The New Herball of William Turner was published in completed form (in Cologne), including all three parts. Part 1 had been published in 1551 (in Antwerp), part 2 in Cologne in 1561.
1569 Joyful News... published by Monardes from Seville between 1569 & 1574, later published by John Frampton in English, 1577, as Joyfull News out of the Newfounde Worlde. Many new plants are discussed in this book, including tobacco & sunflower (the 1st mention). In 1596 John Gerard described the sunflower, which he had grown in his own garden. By 1665 John Ray commented that the flower’s popularity had subsided. Joyfull News... seems also to be the 1st mention in Europe of the American native tree sassafras [See 1586].
1569 Pius V determined that chocolate, though nourishing, would be classified as a beverage. Thus chocolate could be taken during periods of fasting. In 1662, Cardinal Francesco Maria Brancaccio determined that though nourishing, beverages, including wine & chocolate, are not to be considered foods.
1572 Hernández work on the natural history of the New World [in Mexico from 1572-1577, see publication in 1651] led to his description of recipes utilized by the Aztecs for chocolate (cacahuatl). The beverages they made with cacao were highly spiced, the 3 principal flavorings being hueinacaztli (a petal from the Annonaceous tree Cymbopetalum penduliflorum), tlilxochitl (the processed "bean" of the orchid, Vanilla planifolia), & mecaxochitl (the inflorescence of Piper sanctum, a relative of black pepper.) In line with contemporary European concern over the humor & the nature of medicines & foods, Hernandez classified cacao as "temperate in nature," but somewhat "cold & humid."
1573 The peanut is known to have been cultivated in Chekiang Province, China, probably arriving from Brazil through Portuguese traders.
1573 Clusius became court gardener to Maximilian II in Vienna, remaining in that position until 1587. He later became a professor at the University of Leiden in Holland, where he introduced & popularized the tulip.
1575 Milanese voyager & writer Girolamo Benzoni noted in his History of the New World (in reference to chocolate): "It seemed more a drink for pigs, than a drink for humanity. I was in this country for more than a year, & never wanted to taste it, & whenever I passed a settlement, some Indian would offer me a drink of it, & would be amazed when I would not accept, going away laughing. But then, as there was a shortage of wine, so as not to be always drinking water, I did like the others. The taste is somewhat bitter, it satisfies & refreshes the body, but does not inebriate, & it is the best & most expensive merchandise, according to the Indians of that country."
1578 Bernal Díaz del Castillo observed the devastation of native peoples in New Spain: "Let us turn to the province of Soconusco which lies between Guatemala & Oaxaca. I say that in the year 25 [1525] I was traveling through it for 8 or 10 days, & it used to be peopled by more than 15,000 inhabitants [households], & they had their houses & very good orchards of cacao trees, & the whole province was a garden of Cacao trees & was very pleasant , & now in the year 578 [1578] it is so desolate & abandoned that there are no more than twelve hundred inhabitants in it."
1581 In a series of letters sent from Portugal (1581-1583) Phillip II of Spain wrote to his 2 daughters about the love of plants & gardening: "The other day I was given what is contained in this box, being told that it was a sweet lime; &, although I do not believe that it is anything else than a lemon, I longed to send it to you because, should it be a sweet lime then I never saw one so big...I also send you roses & some orange blossoms, that you may see there are some here." It is likely that the Phillip’s sweet lime was what we today would call an orange, for the Portuguese called the Indian sweet orange the limon doce.
1581 Just a few years prior to the battle of the Spanish Armada, the English Parliament banned use of logwood dye (extracted from the tropical American tree Haematoxylon campechianum, & traded through Spanish sources), which had recently come into use for its capacity to yield black cloth. In 1673, with direct access to sources in Central America assured, the bans were repealed. A memory of logwood harvesting was recorded by William Dampier (later to become a prominent English Admiral), who at the age of 22 spent several months in a work camp. The dye comes from heartwood of the trees, some of which were so great in diameter that the workers "therefore are forced to blow them up."
1583 De Plantis libri by Andrea Cesalpino became the greatest botanical book of the 16th century & the 1st general plant science text to supersede ancient writings. In the preceding 2000 years, little had been added to our knowledge about plants. Like his predecessors, Cesalpino accepted anecdotal information, but he advanced plant study in many areas, particularly in his grouping of plants by their physical characteristics (morphology) rather than by their supposed medicinal properties. Cesalpino was a student of Luca Ghini [See 1533; 1543.]
1583 Clusius is said to have taken the yellow-flowered Rosa foetida to Holland from Vienna, where it became known as the Austrian Briar (the orange-red cultivar ‘Bicolor’ is still known as ‘Austrian Copper’.)
1584 Richard Hakluyt, friend of Walter Raleigh & ardent supporter of the potential of North America, published A Discourse of Western Planting, which promoted establishment of plantations through settlement. Though he lobbied Elizabeth I for support, such a project would not be advanced until 1606, when James I issued the First Charter of Virginia. Hakluyt participated in that charter as part of the London Company, which managed the Virginia Company (a separate group formed the Plymouth Company.) At his death, in 1616, Hakluyt’s son inherited his two shares of the Virginia Company, valued at 21 pounds. Hakluyt had predicted remarkable exports of raw materials from North America, with great emphasis on wood & forest products. At his time, construction of a large warship required about 2,000 oak trees, clearing approximately 50 acres of forest. In final analysis, lumber was not a major export, but he was on target in regard to naval stores. By 1609, 80 ship masts had been shipped to England. This trade would continue, eventually engendering a new charter governing management of trees for use in shipbuilding. The newly established regulations would mean English shipbuilders became dependent on this source for masts until 31 July 1775, when the final shipment of white pines was delivered, In the intervening period, England received over 4500 masts from the colonies.
1585 The 1st commercial shipment of cacao seed arrived in Spain, having been sent from Veracruz.
1586 Francis Drake, on landing at Roanoke Island, North Carolina (Rupp states it was Roanoke, VA) heard tales from colonists who had survived on soup made from sassafras. He returned to England with what may have been the 1st shipment of this plant. As early as 1602 Bartholomew Gosnold (who named Cape Cod & Martha’s Vineyard) had shipped material of Sassafras to England, & by 1607 Sassafras was in great demand, sold in English coffeehouses & even on the street. The tea was said to cure a wide range of diseases; the wood, thought to repel insect attack.
1587 First written description of Brussels sprouts, a form of cabbage. Common in Belgium, this vegetable crop was known in the US by 1800.
1590 José de Acosta noted, in his Natural & Moral History, that: "The main benefit of this cacao is a beverage which they make called Chocolate, which is a crazy thing valued in that country. It disgusts those who are not used to it, for it has a foam on top, or a scum-like bubbling. ...It is a valued drink which the Indians offer to the lords who come or pass through their land. And the Spanish men - & even more the Spanish women - are addicted to the black chocolate." Acosta also tells of a time in the port of Guatulco (Mexico) when the English burned more than 100,000 loads of cacao (a load contained 24,000 beans).
1593 Carolus Clusius, having relocated to Leiden, established the Hortus Academicus, said to be the 1st botanical garden dedicated to ornamental plants. The valuable collection of tulips he cultivated there provided much of the material for the growing Dutch tulip industry - apparently through theft as much as sale or gift.
1596 L. Shih Chen published Pen Ts’ao Kang Mu, the most well-known & praised of Chinese herbals.
1596 Gerard included in a catalog of plants in his Holborn garden what may be the 1st mention of the garden Nasturtium (probably Trapaeolum majus). Aiton’s Hortus Kewensis, notes that Lumley Lloyd introduced this plant to horticulture, in 1686.
1597 Gerard published the 1st edition of his Herball, followed eventually by a 2nd edition in 1633, which was edited & expanded by Thomas Johnston. Titled The Herball or General Historie of Plants, the text is said to have relied heavily on an English translation of Dodoens’ Stirpium.
1601 Jean Robin published a catalog for his medicinal herb garden.
1603 Spigelius published instructions on making dried herbarium specimens (in his Isagoges in Rem Herbarium) - a technique that had only come into practice during the previous 50 years. The collecting, exchange, archiving, & study of pressed, dried plants that are mounted to sheets of paper engendered a quiet revolution in taxonomy, floristics, & systematics.
1603 At the age of 18, Federico Cesi (meeting with 3 friends in his Umbrian home) founded the Academy of Linceans (the Academy of the Lynx-eyed), the 4 members devoting themselves to "the keen exploration of the minutiae of nature." Each member assumed a specialty; Cesi was devoted to botany. By 1610, Giovaanni Battista Della Porta had become the 5th member, & in 1611, Galileo Galilei was enrolled.
1605 The Dutch began seizing control of Portuguese-held trade with the Spice Islands (historically called the Moluccas, today the three widespread groups of islands that make up the Indonesian province of Maluku), gaining full control by 1621. By 1681 a plan to eliminate trees in most areas of the Moluccas & to concentrate cultivation of nutmeg & cloves on only 2 islands had the desirable effect of raising prices & tightening management of supply.
1606 A million black mulberry trees were imported to England, another step in an effort to start a silk industry. Production of silk in England was never successful.
1608 Jean Robin & Pierre Valet published the 1st European florilegium, Jardin du Roy tres Chrestien Henri IV. Closely followed by
Jean Theodore de Bry's Florilegium Novum (1611-14) & Florilegium Renovatum (1641)
Basilius Besler's Hortus Eystettensis (1613),
Emanuel Sweert’s Florilegium (1612),
Crispin de Passe's Hortus Floridus (1614).
These books covered extensive numbers of horticultural floral forms. For example, Besler’s work included 660 species & more than 400 variants (doubles, variegates, etc); 400 of his plants had medicinal value, 180 were used in cooking, & 250 were grown principally for ornament. Besler’s book included numerous forms of lilies, campanulas, delphiniums, hollyhocks, scabiosas, iris, tulips, narcissus, roses, hyacinths, & anemones.
