THE TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB OFFICERS FOR 1910 President HENRY H. RUSBY, M.D. Vice-Presidents EDWARD S. BURGESS, PH.D. JOHN HENDLEY BARNHART, A. M., M.D. TORREYA is furnished to subscribers in the United States and Canada for one dollar per annum; single copies, fifteen cents. To subscribers elsewhere, five shillings, or the equivalent thereof. Postal or express money orders and drafts or personal checks on New York City banks are accepted in payment, but the rules of the New York Clearing House compel the request that ten cents be added to the amount of any other local checks that may be sent. Subscriptions are received only for full volumes, beginning with the January issue. . Reprints will be furnished at cost prices. Subscriptions and remittances should be sent to TREASURER, TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB, 41 North Queen St., Lancaster, Pa., or College of Pharmacy, 115 West 68th St., New York City. Matter for publication should be addressed to JEAN BROADHURST Teachers College, Columbia University Years ago, before the museum building of the New York Botanical Garden was completed, Professor Lucien M. Underwood showed me some of the quaint and rare books in the library. Among them none interested me more than an old herbal written by William Coles and printed "at the Angel in Cornhil near the Royal Exchange in 1657." A. Bronson Alcott says that "the old herbals, too, with all their absurdities, are still tempting books", and so I found this one by Coles, which he naïvely calls Adam in Eden or Nature's Paradise. Since then my guests at the Garden have always been introduced to this time-browned volume with its little, incongruous, gummed label; and the interest shown has suggested the printing of these extracts, that all may have access to an expurgated edition of this rare old book. Botanists may be interested in the plant descriptions; some are "descriptions which do not describe" and some are strikingly simple and distinctive. How little was generally known of the non-flowering plants is shown by the description of the polypody fern where the sori or fruit dots are ingeniously explained. The derivation of many of our common words is suggested in such unusual spellings as wood bind for woodbine, onely for only, and then for than; and the rare use of the possessive apostrophe raises a question as to the time of its general introduction into the English language and what spellings may the advocates (and the opponents) of simplified spelling not champion where names are spelled in three ways in one paragraph! *Illustrated with the aid of the Catherine McManes fund. [No. 7, Vol. 10, of TORREYA, comprising pages 145-168, was issued Aug. 1, 1910 The general cure-all qualities ascribed to some of the plants suggest a modern patent medicine advertisement; and the recipes call so often for wine and beer as to suggest that then, as to-day, not a little of the invigorating effect was due to the alcohol used. The book consists of nearly seven hundred pages and contains descriptions of three hundred forty-three plants, which not only cure such human ills as the hichet (hiccough) and the loosening of the teeth, stay hunger, and prevent weariness, but serve various other useful purposes, such as making hens lay, keeping puppies small, and increasing public revenues. Each plant is described under five headings, the names, the kinds, the form, the places and time, and the virtues or the signature and virtues. By signature, is meant the sign put upon the plant by an all-wise Creator to show man its uses, such as thorns to indicate its thorn- or splinter-drawing power, an earshaped leaf to point out its ability to cure deafness, and sticky or slimy juice to show that it should be used to "glue together' cuts and wounds. The extracts given below include a few of the plants commonly known to-day in America. The aim has been to present for these well-known plants typical descriptions and recipes, preserving so far as possible the leisurely style and naïveté so characteristic of the whole book. Useless repetition has been avoided by the frequent omission of entire sections (such as names, form, and signature); when part of a section has been omitted it is indicated by asterisks in the usual way. Other striking differences between ADAM IN EDEN and the books of to-day are the closely-printed title page, lavishly adorned with red ink; the effusive dedication and lengthy introduction, enlivened by several poems dedicated to the author himself; and the conclusion, most naïve of all, where Mr. Coles openly asks for encouragement, laments the lack of time as "a thing I have much wanted ever since I undertook this business", and with a pun bids farewell to the gentle and apprehensive reader. |