Winter got you down? Explore the pages of The Botanist’s Repository for some stunning illustrations from botanist, engraver, and illustrator Henry Charles Andrews. This plate is of a corn lily, listed as Ixia reflexa, from v. 1-2 (1797).
Turning to one of our favorites for Iris Day!
This image is from Maria Sibylla Merian’s De Europischen insecten (1730), and is one of many beautiful images of hers. Find more in @biodivlibrary by searching Maria Sibylla Merian.
Whether or not you saw April showers, allow us to bring you some May flowers for the first of May. Specifically, Lily of the Valley - Convallaria majalis - called Maiglöckchen in German. From Mai (May) and Glocke (bell) it’s the traditional birth flower for the month of May.
Images from
Flora von Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz. (1903)
Even if it doesn’t feel like it where you are, it’s SPRING in the northern hemisphere…today!
Tune in next week when we’ll be featuring more spring-y garden and seed catalog posts to celebrate the arrival of spring and the great gardening resources our friends at the Biodiversity Heritage Library have dug up.
(Source: biodiversitylibrary.org)
July 31st is the birthday of artist and naturalist Mary Vaux Walcott. Born in 1860, Walcott took an early interest in the arts. After spending many of her summers in the wilds of Western Canada with her family, she turned her artistic inclinations towards botanical illustration. Later in life, she married Charles Doolittle Walcott, who was Secretary of the Smithsonian at the time (1914).
She returned to the Rockies for many months out of the year with Charles as he conducted paleontological and geological studies. There she continued her watercolor studies of native flowers. The Smithsonian published her illustrations in North American Wild Flowers in 1925 in a five volume set that you can find in the Biodiversity Heritage Library.
We’ve posted about Walcott before, here and here. Her work is exceptionally beautiful, and we think some of the blooms here might have even been in bloom around her birthday.
Another for Women’s History Month, some botanical illustrations from one of our favorite artist/naturalists - Mary Vaux Walcott.
Mary, also known as Mary Morris Vaux, was a remarkable woman who just happened to also marry the 4th Secretary of the Smithsonian. (one of the reasons she’s a favorite, plus - just look at those flowers!)
Images above from v. 2 and v.4 of North American wild flowers which has been digitized in its entirety and is available on the Biodiversity Heritage Library.
For even more beautiful plants, Smithsonian American Art Museum has many of her original watercolors in their collections