Note 4 — Chapter I · The Botanists of Germany and the Netherlands from Brunfels to Kaspar Bauhin[2].

Beside the herbals mentioned in the text, which may be regarded as scientific works on botany, a considerable number of books on the signature of plants were written in the 16th and 17th centuries in the interests of medicine or medical superstition. It was believed that certain external marks and resemblances between parts of plants and the organs of the human body indicated the plants and the parts of them which possessed healing virtues. Pritzel mentions by name twenty-four works of the kind, which appeared between 1550 and 1697. The herbals also noticed the signatures, and even Ray has an enquiry into the subject.