German (?) Herbal from 1721

[Monique D. Reed]

Dear Friends,

The rare books section of our library has recently acquired a lovely
herbal about which they would like to know more.  The title on the
spine is "Buchwalds Lebendiges Krauterbuch", while the title page
says "Johannis de Buchwald Specimen Medico-Practico-Botanicum".  The
author's name is given in a different place as "Balthasare Johan de
Buchwald."  The book describes many plants and has for each plant
columns listing the name in Latin, French, Danish, and German
(or perhaps this is Austrian?)  The text itself looks very much like
old German and is set in Gothic type.  The remarkable feature of the
book is the numerous actual samples of plants that have been pasted
to the pages, each in its appropriate blank spot.

If anyone knows anything about the author or the book, could you
please contact me?  We'd like to know if an owner of the book was
expected to put his own specimens in as he found them, whether the
volume *came* with the specimens, or whether the specimens were part
of a subscription (like packets of collections used to be.)

To make this particular copy more interesting, it appears to have
been owned by someone who wrote numerous notes in French in a *very*
tiny, decorative hand.  Other marginal notes appear to be in Russian.
The binding has been split to admit some green satin ribbons which
were used to tie the book shut.  It looks like it has had an
interesting life in a traveling satchel or saddlebag...

Monique Reed
Herbarium
Biology Department
Texas A&M