Foxtail grass
Date
1689-1713
Creator
Richard Waller (1660 - 1715, British) , Naturalist
Object type
Archive reference number
Manuscript page number
p4
Material
Dimensions
height (page): 380mm
width (page): 240mm
width (page): 240mm
Subject
Content object
Description
Botanical study of common foxtail grass (gramen phalaroides) and foxtail grass (gramen alopecuri) with flower details.
Richard Waller supplied the names for the plants he had painted from John Ray’s Synopsis Methodica Stirpium Britannicarum (London, 1690), which collated the names for the same plant across different authorities. ‘Ger:’ stands for John Gerard’s Herbal, corrected by Thomas Johnson (1633); ‘C.B.’ for Caspar Bauhin’s Pinax (1623); and ‘I.B.’ for Johann Bauhin’s Historia plantarum universalis (1650-51). The reference to John Ray (written as ‘Ray’ or in the Latin form, ‘Raij’) is written in a slightly different coloured ink from the one used for the main entry, suggesting that the page references were added later.
Richard Waller supplied the names for the plants he had painted from John Ray’s Synopsis Methodica Stirpium Britannicarum (London, 1690), which collated the names for the same plant across different authorities. ‘Ger:’ stands for John Gerard’s Herbal, corrected by Thomas Johnson (1633); ‘C.B.’ for Caspar Bauhin’s Pinax (1623); and ‘I.B.’ for Johann Bauhin’s Historia plantarum universalis (1650-51). The reference to John Ray (written as ‘Ray’ or in the Latin form, ‘Raij’) is written in a slightly different coloured ink from the one used for the main entry, suggesting that the page references were added later.
Transcription
1. *Gramen Phalaroides C.B.
Gramen Alopecuroides maj. Ger.
The most common Foxtail Grasse.
No 1 P.182. Raij.
2. Gramen Alopecurinum minus Ger:
Alopecuroides spicâ longâ maj. et min. Park.
Typhoides spicâ angustiore. C.B. Cum caudâ maris purpurascente I.B.
Lesser Bastard Fox=tail Grasse. inter segetes.
No 3 p. 182. Ray
Ric: Waller pinx.
Transcribed by the Making Visible project
Gramen Alopecuroides maj. Ger.
The most common Foxtail Grasse.
No 1 P.182. Raij.
2. Gramen Alopecurinum minus Ger:
Alopecuroides spicâ longâ maj. et min. Park.
Typhoides spicâ angustiore. C.B. Cum caudâ maris purpurascente I.B.
Lesser Bastard Fox=tail Grasse. inter segetes.
No 3 p. 182. Ray
Ric: Waller pinx.
Transcribed by the Making Visible project
Object history
At the meeting of the Royal Society on 18 November 1691, Richard Waller ‘produced several accurate Figures of Plants drawn by himself, amongst them many of the species of grass, they were judged to be drawn with the utmost degree of curiosity’ (JBO/9/62f.). These are most likely the same watercolours of plants Hooke saw (described as ‘limned plants') as early as the spring of 1689, and later in 1693 (R. T. Gunther, Early Science in Oxford, 14 vols (Oxford, R. T. Gunther, 1923-45), X (1935): The Life and Work of Robert Hooke, pp. 112, 117, 210). It seems that Waller worked on these drawings over several years, adding his microscopic observations of stamens and pistols.
On 11 June 1713, Waller showed ‘several Draughts of Grasses and some other common wild Plants, which he had drawn in Water Colours by the life, of the natural size: In the Grasses one part, viz. as much as belonged to the Production of one Grain or seed was represented as seen by the microscope’ (JBO/11/364f.). It is not clear when these watercolours, signed by Waller, entered the Royal Society Library. ‘Waller’s herbal’ is listed in an auction catalogue of his descendant’s library in 1839 (When Waller’s library went on sale in 1839 as part of the library of one of his heirs. (See The whole of the valuable and extensive library, consisting of upwards of 3000 volumes, the property of the late G. G. Blackwell, esquire, deceased (Cirencester: J. Bravender, 1839), p. 4, no. 21).
These drawings may have been the basis of Waller’s ‘Tabula generalis herbarum omnium in Anglia Sponte provenientium Flore perfecto' (A general table of all flowering herbs growing freely in England), which he hoped to serve as pictorial method of describing the ‘specific differences in leaves or flower’, following John Ray, so that ‘a man unskillfull in Botanicks may be able to know the name of any of these plants growing in England’ (2 March 1692, JBC/ 8/100), though it is unclear how they would have worked. The Latin names of the plants in these drawings are mostly from John Ray's Synopsis Methodica Stirpium Britannicarum (London, 1690), and are thus pre-Linnean.
On 11 June 1713, Waller showed ‘several Draughts of Grasses and some other common wild Plants, which he had drawn in Water Colours by the life, of the natural size: In the Grasses one part, viz. as much as belonged to the Production of one Grain or seed was represented as seen by the microscope’ (JBO/11/364f.). It is not clear when these watercolours, signed by Waller, entered the Royal Society Library. ‘Waller’s herbal’ is listed in an auction catalogue of his descendant’s library in 1839 (When Waller’s library went on sale in 1839 as part of the library of one of his heirs. (See The whole of the valuable and extensive library, consisting of upwards of 3000 volumes, the property of the late G. G. Blackwell, esquire, deceased (Cirencester: J. Bravender, 1839), p. 4, no. 21).
These drawings may have been the basis of Waller’s ‘Tabula generalis herbarum omnium in Anglia Sponte provenientium Flore perfecto' (A general table of all flowering herbs growing freely in England), which he hoped to serve as pictorial method of describing the ‘specific differences in leaves or flower’, following John Ray, so that ‘a man unskillfull in Botanicks may be able to know the name of any of these plants growing in England’ (2 March 1692, JBC/ 8/100), though it is unclear how they would have worked. The Latin names of the plants in these drawings are mostly from John Ray's Synopsis Methodica Stirpium Britannicarum (London, 1690), and are thus pre-Linnean.
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