The Herball, or, Generall Historie of Plantes

John Gerard was superintendent of the gardens of William Cecil, advisor to Queen Elizabeth, and was one of the most respected plant experts of sixteenth-century England. He was not the principal author of this famous herbal that bears his name; it is primarily an English translation of Dutch scholar Rembert Dodoen's highly popular herbal of 1554. What distinguishes this book is Gerard’s historically-significant addition of several newly “discovered” plants from North America.

Gerard’s contacts with explorers Walter Raleigh and Francis Drake led to the acquisition of a Virginian potato plant for his own garden. Gerard called the plant a “Virginian potato” to distinguish it from the sweet potato. His 1597 Herball includes the first published description of the potato plant to appear in English and the accompanying illustration was the first picture of a potato that most British people had ever seen.

For many years, the potato was considered a delicacy to be enjoyed only by the rich and it was not until the early eighteenth century that the potato became a staple in the European diet. The impact of the potato on Britain’s cultural history was profound; the potato is credited with supporting the enormous population growth of the nineteenth century and the extensive farming of a single cultivar of the plant eventually led to the blight of 1845 and the Great Irish Famine. All of that history lies far ahead of this second edition of Gerard’s Herball, with its early description of the potato in Britain.