Shelf Life
The first botanical books to be printed on paper were those writings on the medicinal uses of plants known as ‘herbals’. They didn’t contain anything very innovative for the time – rather, they were inky presentations of ideas put forth as far back as the first century by Pliny the Elder and other polymaths of the Roman Empire.
The earliest published herbals originated in Germany. (1485) was a foundation for many later publications, and it was followed by Otto Brunfels’ , which includes woodcuts drawn from nature – stem bends, leaf rips and all – and finally by Leonhart Fuchs, which made
