A well-known name among the earlier French writers is that of Jean Ruel, or Joannes Ruellius, as he is commonly called (1474-1537). He was a physician, and a professor in the University of Paris, and chiefly devoted himself to the emending and explaining of Dioscorides. He also wrote a general botanical treatise, ‘De Natura Stirpium,’ which first appeared in Paris in 1536. This work, which is without illustrations, is intended mainly to elucidate the ancient writers. The most famous of the French herbalists was Jacques d’Aléchamps (Text-fig. 50), whose _magnum opus_, which appeared in 1586, formed a compendium of much of the material which had been contributed by the different nations. He was born at Caen in 1513, and after studying medicine at Montpelier, entered upon the practice of it at Lyons, where he remained until his death in 1588. D’Aléchamps’ great work is generally called the ‘Historia plantarum Lugdunensis.’ Curiously enough, the author’s name is not mentioned on the title-page. From the preface one would gather that Johannes Molinäus (or Desmoulins) was the chief author. However, judging by the way in which the book was quoted by contemporary writers, there appears to be little doubt that d’Aléchamps was really responsible for it, though assisted at different times by Jean Bauhin and Desmoulins. The ‘Historia plantarum’ had numerous faults, but it was, at the time, the most complete universal flora that existed. It contained about 2700 figures (two of which are reproduced in Text-figs. 51 and 101), but, both in drawing and wood-cutting, they show marked inferiority to much of the earlier work. [Illustration: Text-fig. 51. “Ornithogalum magnum” [d’Aléchamps, Historia generalis plantarum, 1586].] 6. THE HERBAL IN ENGLAND. The greatest name among British herbalists of the Renaissance period is that of William Turner, physician and divine, the “Father of British Botany.” He was a north-countryman, a native of Morpeth in Northumberland, where he was born probably between 1510 and 1515. He received his education at what is now Pembroke College, Cambridge. Pembroke deserves to be especially held in honour by botanists, for a hundred years later, Nehemiah Grew, who was as pre-eminent among British botanists of the seventeenth century as Turner was among those of the sixteenth, also became a student at this college.