ABSTRACT
Although significant advances in plant studies were made on the continent in the sixteenth century, William Turner appears to have been uniquely vigorous and productive among the English in his participation in plant culture. The advances he made depended not only, however, on his forays into English forests and fields in search of uncatalogued native species, as is often picturesquely highlighted. Instead, Turner’s botanizing depended just as much on a return to and a new recruitment of the representational forms, qualities, and capacities of the book. Moreover, his work as a botanist depended on and was integrated with his work as a church reformer at a time when such reforms were deeply entrenched in textual controversies. This chapter explores the integration of Turner’s understanding of plants and his approach to textuality by considering his work as a version of the contemporary botanical renaissance that, in light of his theological commitments, might better be described as a botanical reformation.
