John Gerard, The Herball (London, 1636), 3d ed.
Nutrition from the Americas:
Gerard, an estate manager for Queen Elizabeth’s chief executive, was in contact with naturalists around the world who sent him both plants and soil to grow them in.
The first illustration of the “Virginia potato” appears in Gerard’s 1st edition, published in 1597 (compare the 1597 illustration with the potato illustration in this 1633 edition). Nutrition is a powerful hidden force in history: imagine how the history of the world would be different if the potato had never been brought to Europe from the Americas.
Gerard grew and described many American plants, including squash, pumpkins, gourds, marijuana and “Turkie” corn, cultivated by the Mayans as a staple crop.
