Heinrich R. Schinz's

John Gerard is perhaps the best known of all English herbalists. He was a  "Master of the Company of Barber-Surgeons", but his energies were employed chiefly in horticulture and who, at various times, served as superintendent of gardens  to William Cecil, Lord Burghley, and as curator of the physic garden of the College of Physicians of London He eventually became herbalist to King James I. His reputation rests principally upon his publication in 1597 of "The Herball or Generall Historie of Plants".  The work contains some of the earliest images of many plants and text about their medicinal uses, often with notes of where the various plants could be found in England and elsewhere.