Abstract
IN Bohemia the science of botany began, as elsewhere, through its applications in medicine and agriculture. A consideration of the uses of plants led to the first Czech writings on the subject before there was any idea of a study of plants for their own sake. Herbals, containing descriptions of local plants, began to appear in the fourteenth century and were more or less elaborately illustrated. Probably the earliest in Bohemia was the “Lekarszké Knizky” or “Erbarius”, of Christian of Prachatice, who was a Magister of the University of Prague, where he taught between 1392 and 1435. It listed 156 plants, and this was first printed from the original manuscript in the sixteenth century1.
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References
The works mentioned in this article were consulted at libraries of the Czech National Museum, the Charles University and other institutes in Prague, and at Brno and Litomyšl in Czechoslovakia. Some works were read at the British Museum and at the library of the London School of Slavonic Studies.
Much information relating to the development of botany in Czechoslovakia is contained in "Vývoj Äeské PÅírodovÄdy" (Development of Czech Natural Sciences) edited by the late Dr. L. VinikláÅ, 1932).
K. B. Presl 's name is attached to seven species of ferns native to Britain according to G. C. Druce 's "Pocket Handbook to British Plants". Riley 's "Catalogue of Ferns" (London, 1841) contained "additions by C. B. Presl".
Berchtold, "Die Kartoffeln" (Prague, 1842).
NATURE, 139, 1028 (1938).
Liebig's Annalen, 25, 339 (1838).
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DRUCE, G. SOME EARLY CZECH CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOTANY. Nature 151, 98–100 (1943). https://doi.org/10.1038/151098a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/151098a0
