The Herbarium of Apuleius Platonicus, the earliest work to which the term “herbal” is generally applied, scarcely makes any attempt at describing the plants to which it refers. Such a paragraph as the following[24] gives an account of a plant, which, compared with most of the other descriptions in the herbal, may fairly be called precise and full. “This wort, which is named radiolus, by another name everfern, is like fern; and it is produced in stony places, and in old house steads; and it has on each leaf two rows of fair spots, and they shine like gold.” [Illustration: Text-fig. 56. “Cardamomum” = ? _Solanum dulcamara_ L., Bittersweet [Ortus Sanitatis, Mainz, 1491].] The group of late fifteenth-century herbals which we discussed in Chapter II—the Latin and German Herbarius and the Hortus Sanitatis—are alike in giving very brief and inadequate accounts of the characters of the plants enumerated, although their descriptions often have a certain naïve charm. It is scarcely worth while to give actual examples of their methods. It will perhaps suffice to quote a few specimens from the English ‘Grete Herball[25],’ which is a work of much the same class. The Wood Sorrel[26] is dealt with as follows: “This herbe groweth in thre places, and specyally in hedges, woodes and under walles sydes and hath leves lyke iii leved grasse and hath a soure smell as sorell, and hath a yelowe flowre.” As another example we may cite the Chicory, which is described as having “croked and wrythen stalkes, and the floure is of y^e colour of the skye.” Of the Waterlilies, we receive a still more generalised account: “Nenufar is an herbe that groweth in water, and hath large leves and hath a floure in maner of a rose, the rote thereof is called treumyan and is very bygge. It is of two maners. One is whyte, and another yelowe.” Occasionally we meet with a hint of more detailed observation. For instance, the coloured central flower in the umbel of the Carrot is mentioned, though in terms that sound somewhat strange to the modern botanist. We read that it “hath a large floure and in the myddle therof a lytell reed prycke.”