New on the shelves of the Miller Library is a wonderful book, Flora Illustrata, about the LuEsther T. Mertz Library of the New York Botanical Garden. What makes it so wonderful? Why write a whole book about a library? The editors, Susan M. Fraser and Vanessa Bezemer Sellers, answer these questions in their preface. “We hope that Flora Illustrata captures the wonderful experience of spending an afternoon…among the rustling sound of turning pages, the smell of age-worn paper-worlds of wonder emerging from the heavy sheets.”
Turning the pages of this particular book reveals a wealth of illustrations ranging from the woodcuts of medieval herbals to the brilliant chromolithographs of 19th century seed catalogs. Other images are selected from the Mertz unmatched collection of books on plants of the Americas in their natural setting, often with their attendant butterflies, birds, and other animals.
While it’s hard to tear one’s eyes away from the illustrations, the text, written by experts in botanical and horticultural literature from America and Europe, provides an excellent and engaging history of the writers and illustrators of the books in the collection. It is also an excellent human history as seen from the perspective of botanists, nursery owners, and home gardeners.
For example, Elizabeth Eustis, a specialist in the art history of gardens, describes mid-19th century advertising depictions of fruit trees which intentionally included flaws such as a brown spot on an otherwise perfect apple. “Although a blemish may seem counter-intuitive as a selling point, it could effectively rebut accusations that such plates were unrealistically idealized.” She goes on to explain that even then, “the deceitful peddler was a familiar stereotype…”
Winner of the 2015 Annual Literature Award from the Council on Botanical and Horticultural Libraries.
Published in Garden Notes: Northwest Horticultural Society, Fall 2015