Galter in Bloom

All Shapes & Sizes

Hortus Eystettensis (The garden of Eichstätt) is one of the largest botanical works ever published, at a mammoth 18 by 23 inches and illustrated with 374 engravings depicting 1000+ flowers. This book was the ultimate extravagance of its day due to its massive size and its scarcity: only 300 copies were printed. The black and white versions were intended for the professional class, while the luxurious hand-colored copies sold for 10 times the price to Europe’s aristocracy. This was not a book to take out into the field for plant identification; the illustrations were meant for enjoyment. Rather, it was a signifier of the owner’s wealth. It also served to spur others to collect exotic flowers, to inspire extravagant gardens, and to provide patterns for embroidery, a common hobby for aristocratic women.

On the other hand, Histoire des plantes (Chronicle of European plants) is a compendium of novel and traditional botanical knowledge. It is based on the work of Italian physician Pietro Mattioli, one of the most influential naturalists in Europe, who published important commentaries on ancient botanical texts and described new plant species.

The publisher paired this respected source material with the work of Gaspard Bauhin, a Swiss botanist and anatomist who sought to categorize plants according to a new classification structure—one similar to the Linnaean system that botanists still use today. 

Helianthus annuus​ (Sunflower​)

This book is one of the first florilegia, or, books featuring a collection of flowers, usually those grown in a specific area like a botanic garden. Florilegia differ from herbals: the artistry of the illustrations is more important than conveying medicinal or scientific knowledge. ​ ​

Hortus Eystettensis was created to chronicle and celebrate the prince of Eichstätt’s remarkable garden, and the focus of the book is the illustrations. The artists used copperplate engraving to achieve organic, graceful lines and to create much finer detail and shading than was possible with woodblock illustrations, and, as a result, the images are extraordinarily eye-catching and beautiful. ​

Scorzonera latifolia sinuata​ (Black salsify, viper's grass)

Caltha vulgaris​ Calendula (common marigold​)

When compared to the Hortus Eystettensis, this book may seem insubstantial. But its size and layout indicate that it was designed for identifying plants, whether at home or farther afield. Each entry is formatted to fit on one page and includes the same information across entries. This uniformity makes it easier for the reader to scan the page for the desired information. The woodcuts—though small—include enough detail for plant identification. More page space is given to the text because the knowledge therein is considered more important than an ornate illustration.​ ​ ​ ​ ​

Home Health

An important source of botanical illustrations in a medical library is books on materia medica (literally, medical material), or pharmacology. Until the 19th century, when synthetic drugs were first created, all medicines came from the natural world, particularly plants. Materia medica texts could be academic, describing the plants scientifically, but some were intended for home use by laypeople. At a time when families—especially in rural areas—might not have easy access to a doctor, and before the mass manufacture of pharmaceuticals of any kind, households would create their own remedies from the plants they could find in the surrounding area. Having guides like the books in this case aided in the identification of plants and provided instructions on how to prepare herbal remedies. The illustrations are often more diagrammatic than naturalistic, ensuring the reader can see all the important identifying parts of the plant. In some cases, the illustrations may have been more decorative than functional, only there to give a quick idea of the plant for someone who did not or could not read the full description.

Batata hispanorum (Spanish Sweet potato)

Batata virginiana (Virginian Potato)

Early books on materia medica were typically called "herbals," referencing the herbs and other plants described within. These books focused on individual plants and their traditional uses. By the 17th century, the development of chemistry and pharmacology meant that more complicated medicines could be created by combining plants and other substances, but the word "herbal" persisted in the names of texts. John Gerard's herbal is largely a plagiarized English translation of an earlier Latin text and uses woodblocks from earlier books as well. This sort of reuse wasn't unusual in the period before copyright law, although it was frowned upon, and Gerard's Herball became a popular reference source for gardening as well as herbal remedies. One of the few original aspects of the book is the inclusion of the potato, described here for the first time in the English language (but mistakenly identified as being from Virginia rather than South America).

Daucus carota (Wild carrot)

Note the difference in the size of these books. At the turn of the 20th century, huge encyclopedic volumes that addressed all aspects of health for the home became popular. Even as mass-produced, synthetic drugs were becoming more commonplace, these books often included sections on plant remedies. The smaller, older herbal is laid out in the traditional style, with a simple image, a scientific description, and instructions for medicinal use. The larger (nearly 1000 pages), newer book is focused on the image, directing the reader to another part of the book for the remedy. It makes use of the relatively recent technology of reproducing photography in books, which makes the book seem more cutting-edge and authoritative with its realistic depiction of the plant. The two books emphasize different parts of the carrot—the roots versus the flowers—but they each note similar uses: as a diuretic, which would help kidney complaints. 

An herbal's layout is important to its ease of use, and also reflects the method used to print the illustrations. Gerard's Herball (top) and the New Family Herbal (directly above) each place the images with their related text, allowing the reader to view a plant as they read about it. This was easily done because the woodblocks on which the illustrations were carved were printed in the same way as the text, allowing them to be printed at the same time on the same printing press. The books above and below (later editions of Culpeper's 1652 English Physician) use engraved images, which are created in a different way than text and woodcut prints. They are printed on a different press—usually operated by a different printer—and then combined with the pages of text when the book is assembled. Grouping many illustrations on a single page meant fewer plates needed to be engraved and printed, but this would often separate the image from its accompanying text, sometimes by many pages. The 1819 edition below goes so far as to group all the illustrations at the back of the book, completely isolating them from the text. 

Tropical Plants

Starting in the Age of Exploration (c. 1400-1650) and continuing for centuries, natural history books about foreign locations appealed to a broad European readership. They often featured images of unfamiliar and intriguing plants and animals that captivated people eager for details about far-away lands, while the informative text appealed to academic types who appreciated the emphasis on observations and empirical evidence. 

Theobroma cacao​ (Cacao​)

Maria Sibylla Merian was an artist and naturalist who grew up painting and working in her family's print shop. She went on to produce her own illustrated books, and is unique because she and her daughters, Dorothea and Johanna, often completed all the illustrative work themselves, from the preliminary sketches, engraving the copperplates, and hand-coloring the final prints.​

In 1699, Merian and Dorothea sailed to the Dutch colony of Suriname to study the region's insects. From a young age, Merian had reared silkworms and butterflies, and her desire to observe and draw Suriname's insects from life—instead of from dried specimens—led her to finance her own research trip. ​ ​

While this is primarily an entomology book, Merian is considered one of the most talented botanical artists of her time. Her art was both scientifically and artistically significant, and it continues to inspire people working in both fields to this day.​ 

Palma nucifera​ (Coconut​)

Whereas Merian financed her South American trip and research herself, Griffith Hughes, a Welsh clergyman and naturalist, used a subscriber model to crowdsource funds for The History of Barbados. In this model, subscribers' names would be listed in the book they sponsored in acknowledgement of their financial support. Generous donors or VIPs could even sponsor an illustration. Their name and crest was then added to the image, as seen here with the dedication to the Princess of Wales (Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha, the mother of King George III).

Many of the people sponsoring books about the British Empire also funded expeditions to foreign locales or, more likely, profited from colonialist economies, such as the extraction of raw materials, the transatlantic slave trade, plantations, and especially the trade for new exotic goods, such as the coconuts depicted here. ​