De vegetabilis et plantis libri septem

De vegetabilis et plantis libri septem ("Seven Books on Vegetables and Plants") is a botanical compendium written by Albertus Magnus around 1250, before he was appointed bishop of Regensburg in March 1260. The first five books are theoretical, while the last two are practical: the sixth deals with therapeutics and the identification of different species, and the seventh with agriculture and gardening.

The first and fourth books gloss, with the author's own interpolations, the De plantis of Nicolaus of Damascus, which for a long time was attributed to Aristotle. The second, third and fifth are original texts by Albert. He defines botany as "scientia de plantis", a part of natural philosophy: a subordinate science that applies the theory of the living being as living to a restricted domain, that of beings without local motion or sensation. The work offers detailed descriptions of plant morphology, problems of plant physiology, and a classification blending those of Aristotle and Theophrastus, distinguishing plants "without leaves", which include many cryptogams, from plants "with leaves", further divided into "corticated" and "tunicated" plants, names later corresponding to monocotyledons and dicotyledons.