Transfer und Aneignung außereuropäischer Pflanzen im Europa des 16. und frühen 17. Jahrhunderts: Akteure, Netzwerke, Wissensorte

European expansion in the 16th and early 17th centuries initiated the transfer of numerous American and Asian plants to Europe. While the processes of transfer and appropriation involved a large number of actors – princes, nobles, physicians, pharmacists, merchants, clergymen, diplomats and gardeners – only a limited number of ‘exotic’ plants actually became significant as food crops, medicinal plants and aesthetic objects. To illuminate these selective processes of appropriation, the essay examines three protagonists of intercontinental plant transfer – the Sevillan doctor Nicolás Monardes, the Dutch scholar Carolus Clusius and the English pharmacist John Parkinson – and their communication networks. Furthermore, it surveys the major spaces and media of knowledge circulation (gardens and herbals) as well as the diffusion of three important New World plants: the sarsaparilla root, the potato and the sunflower.