Younger brother of Johann Bauhin, Caspar (or Gaspard) Bauhin combined a scientific career with university administration, serving four times as rector of the University of Basel. This work, which first appeared in 1623, offered a comprehensive concordance of names of plants, but arranged according to affinity rather than alphabet.

Parkinson became in turn apothecary to the king and Botanicus Regius Primarius. However, scholars have described the work shown here, with its seventeen tribes - sweet-smelling plants, purgatives, etc. - as a "step backwards in classification."

With his sons, Conrad Loddiges, a German gardener in England, specialized in the cultivation of exotic plants like orchids, camellias, and palms. This work combined the illustrated book with the metaphor of the collector's cabinet.