Tornefole/Tornefole, Gerard's Herbal; The General History of Plants, Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections and Archives, HATCH 39&40

Materialism

The text of the book is in clear Roman type font, giving it a modern appearance.  The images found in the book are woodcut blocks, carved and stamped with ink.  There are over 1,800 woodblock images of different varieties of plants and vegetables.  The newest of these plants to be accknowledged is the potato, which is possibly the first image of the plant to ever be published.  May it be known, that some people felt that Gerard had stolen, and utilized, the work of others without giving credit where credit is due.  This refers to his usage of the wooden blocks used for the images that were originally used by Tabernaemontanus in 1590.  Gerard actually rented the prints from a German printer, but with little original knowledge of the expansion of plants, he could not identify many of the images and they were paired with the wrong plant. [1]

 The image shown gives the example of the layout of the page which Gerard has provided. Items 1-4 on the page give detailed information of the plant itself with the hand drawn image. You are then given the place of where the plant grows, the time of the year, and information of the origin of the plant's name. [2] This was important for farmers and gardeners of the time, as they would discover these new plants for their gardens and fields and benefited from the information given by Gerard.