Crateuas (physician)

[12] The exact plant described remains unknown, although some scholars have connected it to Dorstenia tambourissa or Erythronium denscanis.

[13] Crateuas is known to have written a scholarly three-volume herbal[14] in Greek known as the Rhizotomica[15] (τὰ Ῥιζοτομούμενα, Rhizotomoúmena).

[14] Pliny the Elder credits Crateuas with Dionysius and Metrodorus as the first to provide such illustrations with their descriptions of various plants, although he complains that the images he knew of were frequently misleading.

[7] The Rhizotomica was well regarded in its time,[11] however, and was one of the main sources for Dioscurides's work, which was the primary herbology for Europe during the Middle Ages.

The early 6th century "Vienna Dioscurides"[19] produced for Anicia Juliana in Constantinople includes numerous images captioned with short texts beginning with the name Crateuas.