Rembert Dodoens (1517–1585) was a Flemish physician and botanist, also known under his Latinized name Rembertus Dodonaeus. He is best known for his herbal Cruydeboeck (more precisely: Cruijdeboeck, as the title is printed on the title page), written in old Flemish and published in 1554.
A few years later, in 1557, a French translation of this work appeared, made by Carolus Clusius: Histoire des plantes. A revised edition of the Cruydeboeck was published in 1563.
Between 1561 and 1580 four smaller botanical works written in Latin became available, which later were incorporated in the well known Latin edition of the herbal: Stirpium historiae pemptades sex sive libri XXX (1583). The final edition of this opus magnum, Dodonaeus’ last work, was published posthumously in 1616. Based on the Latin editions of the Herbal three poshumous editions in Flemish were published, entitled: Cruydt-Boeck, in 1608 (first edition), 1618 (second edition) and 1644 (final edition, again revised and expanded).
Several botanical works of Dodonaeus are available on the internet. The (Dutch) website “Plantaardigheden” has made two of these accessible for the general public by means of a special navigation, with complete contents (enumeration of the titles of the parts, books and chapters): the Cruydeboeck or Cruijdeboeck from 1554 and the Cruydt-Boeck from 1644.
The image above is a drawing of the Vitex agnus-castus, the Chaste tree or Monk’s pepper – a meditterenean middlesized tree blooming late summer and autumn and thus providing a good end-os-season foraging for the honeybees. Below a link to the pages Dodoens’ dedicated to this tree in his Herbarius or Cruydt-boeck of 1644: http://caliban.mpiz-koeln.mpg.de/dodoens/high/01213.html
Part 3 of the Cruydt-boeck is dedicated to the medicinal herbs. The introduction, in old-flemish, goes as follows: “Van der wortelen, medecynale cruyden, ende quaden hinderlijcke ghewassen, fatsoen, naem, natuere, cracht, werckinghe ende hindernisse. Duer D. Rembert Dodoens”.