John Gerard

John Gerard (1545 in Nantwich – 1611/12 in London) was an English botanist famous for his herbal garden . After being educated in Willaston near Nantwich he started to study medicine and travelled widely as a ship's surgeon. From 1577 on, he supervised the gardens of Lord Burleigh in London. In 1595 Gerard became a member of the Court of Assistants in the Barber-Surgeon's company, in 1597 he was appointed Junior Warden of the Barber-Surgeons, in 1608 Master of the same.

In 1596, he published a list of plants cultivated in his garden at Holborn, still extant in the British Museum, in 1597 his famous herbal. In 1633 an enlarged and amended version was printed. Gerard used the Materia Medica of Dioscorides, the works of the German botanists Fuchs and Gesner and the Italian Matthiolus.

The Historie of Plants is famous both for the detailed descriptions of plants, the folklore contained in the articles and its splendid prose.

Literature

• Marcus Woodward (ed.) Gerard's herbal. The history of plants (London, Senate 1994).