H.J. Noltie & M.F. Watson At high altitude in the eastern Himalaya grow several species of Saussurea in which the whole plant is densely covered in white hairs, their inflorescences concealed by pr...

Dick Rauh’s watercolor of Sesbania vesicaria, bladderpod. Carter Burden Gallery I can’t complete this series of posts (1,2,3) on the new worlds into which herbaria have taken me without menti…

Pages from the herbarium of Giovan Battista Casapini. Palatina Library of Parma While I knew a little about history and geography before I got into learning about herbaria (see 1,2), I can honestly…

The Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) was most famous in his lifetime for his system of classifying plants, as well as the binomial nomenclature that is still used today. Linnaeus had a…

Papyrus illustration in Kaempher’s book on Japan. In the last post I reflected on how herbaria have lead me into investigation of time periods that I had given little consideration.  Now…

Jagiellońska Biblioteka Cyfrowa, Uniwersytet Jagielloński

Wild cucumber from a 13th-century Arabic translation of a herbal by Dioscorides. Walters Art Museum, Baltimore I’ve been reflecting on all the things that herbaria have gotten me into.  There …

Specimens of Draba alpina from the Parry Expedition Album. Harvard Botany Libraries. In this series on the herbaria I saw at Harvard University’s Botany Libraries is a collection of plants from an …

On view through March 31, 2027, the exhibition traces how plants and gardens have inspired writing, art, and more across cultures.

Sketch of William Darlington’s birthplace inside the cover of Stephen Sharples herbarium. Harvard Botany Libraries While I was visiting Harvard University’s Botany Libraries, I asked to see a…

Plant Humanities moves plants to the center of critical inquiry, positioning them as biocultural entities with distinct environmental and social histories that have profoundly shaped human cultures. I...

Post provided by Aaron Lee Complicated instruments and simple solutions It was an abnormally warm and balmy December in Minnesota, and Dr. Jeannine Cavender-Bares and I were in the lab. The lights …

Worksheet on Arisaema triphyllum from Carroll Dodge’s herbarium. Harvard Botany Libraries I traveled to New England twice this spring, and on each trip, I spent two days at Harvard University…

I recently joined the American Orchid Society (AOS) because I wanted to learn more about these plants, particularly their complex structures and how they are fertilized.  Receiving Orchids, th…

In this series of posts on books I’ve read recently , the next is Natural Magic: Emily Dickinson, Charles Darwin, and the Dawn of Modern Science by Renée Bergland (2024).  Her subjects are two…

On a recent trip to Boston, I came upon the Harvard Book Store and within a few minutes I had fallen in love with it as four plant-related books almost leapt into my book-starved hands.  I decided …