Alice Wolff (Ph.D. 2025, Cornell Medieval Studies) and Antonio DiTommaso (Professor, Cornell University) published their article, "To know diverse manner of weeds: the development of weed identification manuals in early modern England and their influence on North American guides" in Weed Technology, 2025
Abstract:
The history of weed science as a discipline has been a topic of interest for decades, but it is rare
for researchers to consider publications prior to the 19th century or that were not focused on
North America. In this article, the development of weed identification manuals in early modern
England is documented out of two genres of premodern scientific writing: agricultural treatises
and illustrated herbals. These two forms of writing intersected in the late 18th century with the
publication of Thomas Martyn’s four-volume Flora rustica, an illustrated guide to plants in
British agricultural systems. We argue that the key characteristics of modern North American
weed identification guides in English (the use of the term weed to categorize plants, descriptions
of plant habitats, and the use of detailed descriptions and/or illustrations of plants for
identification purposes) originated in these premodern texts.
