Acanthus dioscoridis L. Acanthaceae. Distribution: Iran, Iraq, southern Turkey. Herbaceous perennial flowering plant. Named for Pedanius Dioscorides of Anazarbus, 1st century Greek physician and herbalist whose book, De Materia Medica, was the main source of herbal medicinal information for the next 1,600 years. He describes some 500 plants and their medicinal properties. His manuscript was copied and annotated over the centuries, and the earliest Greek text in existence is the illustrated Juliana Anicia Codex dated 512CE (Beck, 2005). The first English translation was made around 1650 by John Goodyear and published by Robert T. Gunther in 1934