History of botany voyages to distant lands instigating another phase of encyclopaedic plant identification, nomenclature, description and illustration, "flower painting" possibly at its best in this period of history. Plant trophies from distant lands decorated the gardens of Europe's powerful and wealthy in a period of enthusiasm for natural history, especially botany (a preoccupation sometimes referred to as "botanophilia") that is never likely to recur. Often such exotic new plant imports (primarily from Turkey), when they first appeared in print in English, lacked common names in the language. During the 18th century botany was one of the few sciences considered appropriate for genteel
History of botany books, known as herbals showed that botany was still a part of medicine, as it had been for most of ancient history. Authors of herbals were often curators of university gardens, and most herbals were derivative compilations of classic texts, especially "De Materia Medica". However, the need for accurate and detailed plant descriptions meant that some herbals were more botanical than medicinal. German Otto Brunfels's (1464–1534) "Herbarum Vivae Icones" (1530) contained descriptions of about 47 species new to science combined with accurate illustrations. His fellow countryman Hieronymus Bock's (1498–1554) "Kreutterbuch" of 1539 described plants he found in nearby woods and