Abstract
IN this attractive little volume the authors have gathered together all that is known of Thomas Johnson, the seventeenth-century apothecary, who edited Gerards Herbal in 1633. Those interested in the history of British botany will be grateful to the authors, not only for providing the first biography of Gerards admirable editor, but also for the light they throw on Johnsons little-known and extremely rare Mercurius Botanicus, … (1634-41). It is conclusively shown that this work, and not Hows Phytologia Britannica (1650), should be considered the first Flora of Britain. Its neglect hitherto is largely due to the fact that Pulteney, when he described the Phytologia as the first English Flora in 1790, possessed only the first part of the Mercurius. Subsequent authors have copied Pulteneys statement.
Thomas Johnson: Botanist and Royalist.
By H. Wallis Kew H. E. Powell. Pp. xi + 151 + 13 plates. (London, New York and Toronto: Longmans, Green and Co., Ltd., 1932.) 8s. 6d. net.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Thomas Johnson: Botanist and Royalist. Nature 132, 228 (1933). https://doi.org/10.1038/132228b0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/132228b0