Brunfels published the first two volumes of Herbarum vivae eicones ad nature imitationem, sum[m]a cum diligentia et artificio effigiatae. . .. in 1530 and 1532; the third volume was edited by Michael Heer and published in 1536, two years after Brunfels's death. Unlike earlier herbals, which were lllustrated with conventional stylized figures, copied and recopied over the centuries from one manuscript to another, Brunfels's Herbarum was illustrated with detailed, accurate renderings of plants taken directly from nature, most of them showing all portions of the plant (root, stem, leaves, flowers and fruit), and some even going so far as to depict wilted leaves and insect damage. The artist responsible for the illustrations was Hans Weiditz; his contributions were credited in a poem appearing on leaf A4r, making him the first botanical illustrator to be recognized for his work. Comparison of Weiditz's woodcuts with the woodcuts in Leonhard Fuchs's De historia stirpium (1542) show that the artists who worked with Fuchs were strongly influenced by Weiditz's work. In contrast to its revolutionary images, the text of the Herbarum was an uncritical compendium of quotations from older authorities, primarily concerned with the therapeutic virtues of each plant. Brunfels made no attempt to classify the plants he discussed, but related species often appear in close proximity to one another. He restricted himself to plants indigenous to Strassburg and described over forty new species. At the end of the second volume is a collection of twelve tracts edited by Brunfels, entitled De vera herbarum cognitione appendix. This includes the first published writings of both Hieronymus Bock and Leonhard Fuchs.  

Digital facsimile of a hand-colored copy of the 1530 volume from Google Books at this link; of the 1532 volume from the Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.

The first work on ophthalmology after Grassi (1474) written by a known physician. At the end of the anonymous Büchlin issued by the same publisher in 1538 (No. 6932) the writer promises a bigger and better work on eye diseases in the near future. This was Fuchs's treatise, which has 32 pages, as opposed to the 24 pages of the 1538 Büchlin, and which details many more diseases, using a more learned Latin terminology. Like the anonymous 1538 pamphlet, Fuchs's work is very rare.

Illustrated with full-page woodcut illustrations drawn by Albrecht Meyer, copied onto the blocks by Heinrich Füllmaurer and cut by Veit Rudolf Speckle; the artists' self-portraits appear on the final leaf. Describing and illustrating circa 400 native German and 100 foreign plants-- wild and domestic—in alphabetical order, with a discussion of their medical uses, De historia stirpium was probably inspired by the pioneering effort of Otto Brunfels, whose Herbarum vivae imagines had appeared twelve years earlier. "These two works have rightly been ascribed importance in the history of botany, and for two reasons. In the first place they established the requisites of botanical illustration—verisimilitude in form and habit, and accuracy of significant detail.... Secondly they provided a corpus of plant species which were identifiable with a considerable degree of certainty by any reasonably careful observer, no matter by what classical or vernacular names they were called...." (Morton, History of Botanical Science [1981] 124).

Fuchs's herbal contained the first glossary of botanical terms, and provided the first depictions of a number of American plants, including pumpkins and maize. The book is especially remarkable for its generous tribute to the artists Meyer, Füllmaurer and Speckle, whose self-portraits appear on the last leaf. This tribute to the artists may be unique among sixteenth century scientific works, many of which were illustrated by unidentified artists, or artists identified by name only. It is especially unusual for the name of the artist who transferred the drawings onto the woodblocks to be recorded, let alone for that artist to be portrayed.

Translated into French by Eloy de Maignan as Commentaires tres excellens de l'hystoire des plantes , composez premièrement en latin par Leonarth Fousch , medecin tres renommé . et depuis nouvellement traduictz en langue Françoise , par un homme scavant & bien expert en la matière. Paris: Chez Iacques Gazeau , en la rue Sainct Iehan de Latran devant le college de Cambrai, 1549.

Facsimile edition with commentary volume: The Great Herbal of Leonhart Fuchs, edited by F. G. Meyer, E. M. Trueblood and J. L. Heller, 2 vols., Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999. This includes English translations of selected portions of the herbal. For further information see the entry at HistoryofInformation.com at this link.

The “Antidotarium magnum” by the Byzantine physician Nicolaus Myrepsus. It was the largest strictly pharmaceutical work that had appeared up to the time of its writing (about 1270-1280); it contained more than 2,500 prescriptions or compounds arranged according to purpose. The first section included hundreds of antidotes, presumably for poisons. This edition was edited, annotated, and translated from the Greek by Leonhart Fuchs. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

A vernacular guide for living a healthy life compiled from the writings of Fuchs. Includes herbal and dietary remedies, recipes for oils, pills and other preparations to treat maladies such as fever, plague and wounds.