In the early 1540s the first botanic gardens in Europe began to form, principally as medical gardens. This began with the local flora and then, in the 1600s, started to include species from throughout Europe, Turkey and the ‘New World’. The gardens grew into something closer to what we would call botany today: the documentation of the living plant materials, collections of herbaria, and research. At the same time, an interest in alpine plants began to develop. Soon there were descriptions of newly discovered plants from explorations to the mountains, notably Monte Baldo in the Italian Alps.