ABSTRACT
In 1592 the elderly apothecary and merchant in drugs and spices James Garet Sr (also Jacques Garret; 1519/20-c. 1594) wrote to Clusius from London that he had just returned from a trip of some nine weeks to the Northern Netherlands. He had paid a visit to their mutual friend Johan van Hoghelande in Leiden, and seen a double red ranunculus in his garden, but Hoghelande did not want to share it: ‘he is so tight- sted that I could not get it out of his hands, patience’ ( J. Garet Sr, 27 July 1592). Garet also referred to tamarind ‘as it grows in its pods in some places in Calicut’, exotic leaves and beans, and some very small melons – ‘very green and with small white spots, like the coloquint’ – which he had received from abroad; they had been so fresh that Garet had planted their seeds in his garden in London, where they had sprouted, so he hoped the two plants would bear fruit.1
