The botanical garden of Montpellier, closely associated with the University's renowned faculty of medicine, was established in 1592. Magnol, who served as director of the botanical garden, compiled an index, complemented by engravings, of the plants growing there. As befitted a royal garden, Magnol's volume was dedicated to the king. In 1762 Gouan, a botanist at Montpellier, published a similar book by the same title in Lyons.

Tournefort, as professor of botany, was responsible for enriching the plant stock at the Jardin du Roi. The Institutiones rei herbariae was a Latin translation of Tournefort's Elémens de botanique (1694), with appendices by Antoine de Jussieu, also of the Jardin du Roi. An English translation under the title of The compleat herbal, also published in 1719, appears in the "Materia Medica" section of this exhibit.