Valerius Cordus , born the February 18th 1515 with Erfurt and dead the September 25th 1544 with Rome, is a Médecin, Chimiste and German Botaniste . With Hieronymus Bock says Tragus, Otto Brunfels and Leonhart Fuchs, it is regarded as one of the German fathers of the Botanique.

His/her father, Euricius Cordus, doctor and botanist also, teaches the Botanique to him that he learned from the Italian botanists. Cordus obtains its title of doctor at the university of Wittemberg in 1531. In 1540, it becomes the first nobody, at least in Europe, to synthesize the ether, a volatile liquid called the soft oil of vitriol , by the sulphuric addition of Acid with alcohol. Paracelse is some time quoted in its place in this discovery. It seems that Cordus learned this technique from travellers Portuguese returned from one of the first forwardings to the the Middle East.

In 1542, it undertakes a voyage in Italy but it contracts the Malaria and dies.

No work appears of alive sound. In 1548, appears Pharmacorum conficiendorum ratio , published by the government of Nuremberg. In 1561, appears its collection Annotationes in Pedacii Dioscoridis de Materia medica libros V where it describes 500 plants approximately. It is not satisfied to reproduce the old texts but tries a true work of taxinomic clarification . These descriptions, very precise and meticulous, are very innovative for its time. It is Conrad Gessner which makes appear its Historia Stirpium and Sylva made up of a comment of Cordus on Dioscoride and of notes taken during its courses by its students.

The plant Cordia of the family of the Boraginacée S was dedicated to him.