Flowers and plants are a staple of British life. Nearly 40% of our population considers themselves to be gardeners, making this and associated activities a national pursuit. And yet, while we hold endless discussions over how to seed, grow, and disseminate our cherished plants, we still known relatively little about how they were collected, exchanged, circulated, identified, and modified, and how much art has shaped our understanding and appreciation of them. This publication, designed to accompany the homonymous exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum, explores some of these plant stories through highlights from Oxfords collections. Bringing together historical and scientific expertise, art and material culture, traditional and contemporary artworks, this book ultimately reflects on the long-lasting impact of flora on our society and of us on it.
Foreword 7
Acknowledgements
The Tradescants and Their Circle 11
David A. Berry
In Focus: The Tradescants Orchard, MS Ashmole 1461 28
Mike Webb
Networks of Exchange: The Oxford Physic Garden 33
Stephen Harris
In Focus: Mary Somerset, Duchess of Beaufort 54
India Cole
Botany and Books 59
Stephen Harris
In Focus: Making the Flora Graeca 76
Stephen Harris
Art and Botany 81
Martyn Rix
In Focus: The Bauer Brothers 106
Stephen Harris
In Focus: Brilliant in the extreme: The Botanical Drawings
of Sarah Anne Drake 110
Lynn Parker
The Business of Plants 115
Stephen Harris
In Focus: Tulips: Bulbs and Blooms between Asia and Europe 134
Francesca Leoni
Botany and Empire 139
Vinita Damodaran
In Focus: Seven Eminent Botanists 157
Matthew Winterbottom
Creative Visions and Alternative Futures 161
Francesca Leoni
In Focus: Oxfords Changemakers 177
Fran Monks
Catalogue of Objects in the Exhibition 189
Notes 210
Select Bibliography 216
Contributors 223
Image credits 224
Francesca Leoni has been curator of Islamic art at the Ashmolean Museum since 2011 (Yousef Jameel Curator, 201116). Prior to Oxford, she held curatorial, research and teaching posts at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (200811), Rice University (200810) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (20078). Her interests include book arts; cross-cultural exchanges between the Islamic world, Europe and Asia; the history and circulation of technologies; occultism and divination; and modern and contemporary art from the Middle East. Professor Stephen Harris is an expert on the use of molecular markers in evolutionary and conservation biology, especially hybridisation, polyploidy, the evolutionary consequences of human-mediated plant movement and conservation genetics. He is also interested in the problems of using herbarium specimens as a source of DNA for evolutionary studies, and the history of botany.
