The Illustrated College Herbal: Plants from the Pharmacopoea Londinensis of 1618

One hundred and twenty beautiful paintings and 80 16th century woodcuts illustrating 200 medicinal plants growing in the medicinal garden of the Royal College of Physicians in London which were used in the world’s first national pharmacopoeia. With their uses according to Culpeper (1649) and Parkinson (1629, 1640), with the modern names of all the plants, a glossary and details of the 80 artists.

With this book, the gardeners and the garden fellows of the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians of London celebrate their 500th anniversary and the 400th anniversary of the publication of the Pharmacopoea (sic) Londinensis by the college. This was produced to provide the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries, newly formed in November 1617, with a single, simple standard for the formulation of medicines, rather than the plethora of different pharmacopoeias then available.