Harley MS 585, ff 1r-101v

Pseudo-Apuleius, Herbarium (circa 183 plants), imperfect at the beginning and lacking one leaf at the end. The text consists of the enlarged Old English translations (itemised below) of two Latin herbals dating from the 4th and late 5th-early 6th century. Because of the loss of the first original gathering, the text begins at chapter four. A table of contents to this text was added by a slightly later hand (ff. 115r-129v).

Other copies in Cotton MS Vitellius C. iii (ff. 18r-74v), Harley MS 6258B (ff. 1r-44v), and Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Hatton 76 (ff. 68r-124r). For the text, see Cockayne 1864-1866, H. Berberich, Das Herbarium Apuleii nach einer früh-mittelenglischen Fassung, Anglistische Forschungen, 5 (Heidelberg, 1901), pp. 1-7, 65-138; Bierbaumer 1976, Voigts 1976, 1978; J. M. Riddle, 'Pseudo-Dioscorides' Ex herbis femininis and Early Medieval Medical Botany', Journal of the History of Biology, 14 (1981), 70-71; H. J. De Vriend, The Old English Herbarium and Medicina de quadrupedibus (London: Early English Text Society 1984), pp. lv-lxi, 31-233 collated with this manuscript.; M. A. D'Aronco, 'The botanical lexicon of the Old English Herbarium', Anglo-Saxon England, 17 (1988), pp. 15-33; M. A. D'Aronco, 'Alcune ricette inedite del MS. Londra, B.L., Cotton Vitellius C. III', in Memor fui dierum antiquorum. Studi in memoria di Luigi de Biasio, ed. by P. C. Ioly Zorattini, A. M. Caproni and A. Stefanutti (Udine, 1995), pp. 241, 245 n. 9.

• ff. 1r-66v: Pseudo-Apuleius, Herbarium (c. 131 plants); imperfect at beginning. Begins at '[…] genim ða ylcan wyrte and cnuca / mið buteram and lege', explicit: ' þonne hæbbe ealle yfelu heo ut/anydeð'.
• ff. 66v-101v: Pseudo-Dioscorides, De herbis femininis and Curae herbarum, excerpts (circa 52 plants); incipit: 'Ðeos wyrt ðe man lichanis / stæfanice and oþrum naman / læcewyrt', explicit: 'astyreð þone innoð'. For De herbis femininis, see also A. Bracciotti, 'L'erba αείζωον da Dioscoride all'Inghilterra anglosassone. L'esemplare del De herbis femininis usato dal traduttore dell'Erbario antico inglese', Cassiodorus, 6-7 (2000-2001), 249-74; for partial editions of the original Latin text see Harley MS 5294 (ff. 43v-58r). For De curae herbarum, see A. Bracciotti, 'L'apporto della tradizione indiretta per la costituzione di un testo critico delle Curae herbarum', Rivista di Cultura Classica e Medioevale, 42.1 (2000), 61-102; A. Bracciotti, 'Nomen herbae selenas. Un passo bilingue delle Curae herbarum', in Plurilinguismo nella tradizione letteraria latina, ed. by R. Oniga (Rome, 2003), pp. 213-54; for the edition of the original Latin text, see S. Mattei, 'Curae herbarum' (Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Università degli Studi di Macerata, 1992-1995).