De simplicibus medicamentis ex Occidentali India delatis, quorum in medicina vsus est.
A 1574 Latin treatise by the Seville physician Nicolás Monardes, printed by Christophe Plantin in Antwerp, describing medicinal plants and drugs brought from the Americas for European physicians. Its woodcuts are small, scattered through the text, and include a curled seed-like object shown in outline and a pair of split halves with stippled shading, alongside decorative foliage initials, a bird initial set among leaves, and a tiny letter A framed by fruiting vines. A designer could draw on the cut-paper-like dense hatching of the seed images and the botanical framing of the decorative capitals for natural-history motifs.
