Nicolás Monardes and the news from the root of Michoacan in Pierre Pena, Mathias de Lobel y Rembert Dodoens

Abstract

The aim of this article is to make known the information that Nicolás Monardes wrote about one of the most important purgative vegetables of the 16th century: the Michoacan root. The news that he spread in Europe was received and transmitted in turn by other authors whose texts have not been studied or translated. We seek to show the part that corresponds to this root to corroborate the descriptions that were made of it, as well as the drawings produced. In this way we present four texts: two by Monardes, Dos libros. El uno trata de todas las cosas que traen de nuestras Indias Occidentales, que sirven al uso de medicina, y como se ha de usar dela rayz del Mechoacan, purga excelentissima, and Primera y segunda y tercera partes de la historia medicinal, (both from 1565); Pierre Pena and Mathias de Lobel´s Stirpium adversaria nova (1571); and by Rembert Dodoens, Stirpium historiae pemptades (1583).