Almost contemporaneously with Carrichter’s ‘Kreutterbůch,’ the first part of a work on astrological botany was published by Leonhardt Thurneisser zum Thurn. This writer, who was possessed of undoubted talent, was also an adventurer and charlatan of the first order. He was born at Basle in 1530. He learned his father’s craft, that of a goldsmith, and is said to have also helped a local doctor to collect and prepare herbs, and to have been employed to read aloud to him from the works of Paracelsus. His career in Basle came to an untimely end, for he seems to have tried to retaliate on some customers who treated him badly, by selling them gilded lead as a substitute for gold, and consequently had to flee the country when the fraud was discovered. He travelled widely, making an especial study of mining. He had an adventurous and varied life, sometimes in poverty and obscurity, sometimes in wealth and renown. During Thurneisser’s most influential period he lived in Berlin, practising medicine, making amulets, talismans, and secret remedies which yielded large profits. He also published astrological calendars, cast nativities, and supplemented his income by the practice of usury. At this time he owned a printing press, and employed a large staff which included artists and engravers. Later on, he was pursued by a succession of misfortunes, including accusations of magic and witchcraft, which compelled him to leave Germany. Little is known of the latter part of his life; he died in the last decade of the sixteenth century. Leonhardt Thurneisser projected a great botanical work in ten books. The first was published in Berlin in 1578, but the others never appeared. The title was ‘Historia unnd Beschreibung Influentischer, Elementischer und Natürlicher Wirckungen, Aller fremden unnd heimischen Erdgewechssen.’ A Latin version of this book, under the name, ‘Historia sive descriptio plantarum,’ was published in the same year. This first instalment deals only with the Umbellifers, which were regarded as under the dominion of the Sun and Mars. The nomenclature and the figures are not clear enough to allow individual species to be recognised. Each is drawn in an ellipse surrounded by an ornamental border, which contains mystical inscriptions denoting the properties of the plant (e.g. Plate XX). In some cases diagrams are given, showing the conjunction of the stars under which the herb should be gathered (Text-fig. 111). [Illustration: _Plate XX_ ‘Cervaria fomina’ [Thurneisser, Historia sive descriptio plantarum, 1587].] [Illustration: Text-fig. 111. Astrological Diagram relating to the gathering of “Cervaria fœmina” [Thurneisser, Historia sive Descriptio Plantarum, 1587].]