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Reading Classics
John Sibthorp & Greece





Gareth Evans' visit to the Aegean prompted thoughts of John Sibthorp (1758-1796) and his plant hunting expedition.  A journey that was guided by his desire to better understand Dioscorides' De Materia Medica it was to result eventually in his own, magnificently illustrated, publication Flora Graeca.  


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 Herbs vol. 32 no. 2 2006.
​  Herbs, the journal of the Herb Society
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Reading Classics - Sibthorp in Greece
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Sibthorp memorial plaque at Bath Abbey
(translation)


"Nearby is entombed John Sibthorpe, MD RSS, Professor of Botany in the
University of Oxford, dedicated throughout his short life to the
investigation of nature, and above all devoted to phytology.
 He explored regions distant and perilous to travellers - yet not
impenetrable - in the face of disheartening health and dangers
overwhelming on every side. Worn out by the labour of a journey full of
hardship which he had recently made through Greece, he died at Bath on 8
February in the 38th year of his life, in the year of Christ 1796."
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Further Reading: The Flora Graeca Story, Sibthorp, Bauer & Hawkins in the Levant.  H. Walter Lack with David J. Mabberley. OUP 1999.



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