US Botanic Garden Conservatory in Early October

The conservatory of US Botanic Garden in Washington DC always has beautiful plants. On a visit early this month, the shapes and colors drew my attention the most. 

The spirals of the unfurling fiddlehead - along with the pink and green coloring.  

Bromeliads with blooms that are splashes of vibrant color and thick fitted curves.

Petals that are paper thin

Flowers that look like they’ve sprouted wings

The pattern of fibers on a tropical trunk

 

 

A flower petal that looks like a spider is attached

A slipper with just a touch of color

 

 

 

 

The unfurling of a tightly pack bud in purple and pink

Road Trip in May 2012 - Shenandoah National Park Day 1

Our first hike at Shenandoah was at Gravel Springs Gap (mile 17.6). It was a short hike with some steep places. The water from the springs trickled through rock lined channels that we crossed many times as we made the look. The area was lush and we enjoyed our first glimpses of the wild flowers that were already blooming - maybe a bit early this year. I've picked my favorite pictures from the Gravel Springs Hike for the collage below.

Next we decided to hike down to Dark Hollow Falls (mile 51). Like many hikes in Shenandoah from Skyline Drive, the first part is downhill and the return is up.  I took one picture of the falls and then focused on the wildflowers, shelf fungus, and the way rocks hung over the water. This was the first location I photographed trillium and noticed that the maples are significant later than at home where the samara have already flown off the trees.

By the time we made it to the hotel, my Fitbit had recorded that I had climbed the equivalent of over 80 flights of stairs! It was quite a day.

Orchids

Orchids come is so many shapes and sizes. Aside from being interesting as flowers - they tend to remind me of other things.

My favorites are the slippers. See the pink one in the upper right - with the rounded toe and plush padding with long ties for around the ankle. And what about the green on the upper left with a more pointed toe. The lower left has the most pointed toe. And finally the white ones on the lower right - bridal slippers.

Next come the ruffles and frills…wrapped into shapes that can be trumpets or cornucopias. The edges of these petals remind us of party dresses and café curtains. It’s the edges that make the flower.

The last grouping reminds me of aliens…with full skirts and wild headdresses and appendages. Many of them grow in groups so the figures appear as if lined up for a parade (see the white ones in the middle left below).

The pictures were taken over the past six months at Brookside Gardens in Maryland and Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania. Enjoy!

History of Botanical Print Making - Online Examples

Botanical prints have been popular since the beginning of books. They were intended to be educational and often show dissections of flowers or seed pods. They are often beautiful works of art as well.

Many of these old books have been scanned and are accessible via the Internet. I’ve created a time ordered sequence below and pointed to where you can find the whole book of similar prints.

 

Published in 1484, Peter Schoeffer’s Herbarius latinus contains simple drawings like on the right. The drawings clearly could not be used by themselves to identify a plant. This book was created not that long after the printing press became more widely used (i.e. the Gutenberg Bible was made in the 1450s).

 

 

 

 

 

In 1487, Hamsen Schonsperger published Gart der Gesundheit. An example showing an Iris is on the left; the color is rather primitive.  The images are embedded with the text rather than being on separate pages.

 

 

 

Hieronymus Brunschwig’s Das Distilierbuoch came in 1521. It has some plain drawings and some colored. The plain drawings show more detail than earlier drawings although some parts seem stylized rather than reflecting of reality as shown in the grape vine representation on the right. This book also include manufacturing type diagrams...it is a 'how to' book.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1546, Kreüter Buch, darin Underscheid, Würckung und Namen der Kreüter so in Deutschen Landen wachsen by Hieronymus Bock was published. The strawberries are easily recognizable. The color is a little better than in the 1400s example.

 

 

 

 

 

Skipping ahead to 1788 when Joseph Gaertner published De frvctibvs et seminibvs plantarvm the attention to detail had increased even more. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1805, William Hooker published 2 volumes of The paradisus londinensis:or coloured figures of plants cultivated in the vicinity of the metropolis with color representations. While these volumes were focused on plants near London - the 1800s were a time of plant exploration around the globe and the botanical prints of the era made those discoveries more widely known with their realistic portrayals.

 

 

 

 

In 1818, William Jackson Hooker published 2 volumes of Musci exotici - with renditions of mosses. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The 2 volume Florae Columbiae by Hermann Karsten was published in 1869. 

 

 

 

 

Medizinal Pflanzen was published in 4 volumes in 1887. I picked the dandelion print for the example from this book (on the right). Note the way the illustrator sought to fit as much as possible about the plant onto a single page.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1904, Kunstformen der Natur was published by Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel. This book has a wide range of prints, not just botanical. The one of pitcher plant is shown at the left. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1907, Alfred  Cogniaux published the many volumes of Dictionnaire iconographique des orchidees. The prints are lovely and grouped by the classification of orchids at the time. My favorite orchids are the slipper-like ones.

 

This is just a small sample of what is available. The two main repositories that I’ve used are Botanicus and the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Both have many more volumes of botanical prints than I've shown here and I encourage you to browse through them. Both repositories have a similar online viewing design. The frame along the left side of the book browsing window generally shows which pages have an illustration (marked 'illustration' or 'plate' or 'tab', for example) so it is possible to skip to the pages that include prints.

Enjoy!