Gerard's Herball

John Gerard's 'Of the Historie of Plants', better known as 'Gerard's Herball' and first published in 1597, is one of the most delightful of Elizabethan herbals. Its glorious prose, the folk-lore steeping its pages, and all its quaint conceits about the "Vertues" of herbs, are known by reputation the world over. This is partly because no book on flowers or trees can be written without quotations from his glowing pages, but mainly because the work has won an unchallenged place of honour as th...