MoPlantsG arden uidesG

ONLINE BOTANICAL ILLUSTRATIONSA TREASURE TROVE OF FREE IMAGES FOR DIGITAL CRAFTS

Maureen “Mo” Gilmer

MMOOPPLLAANNTTSS GGAARRDDEENN GGUUIIDDEESS • Online Botanical Illustrations www.moplants.com

Contents PageWhat Makes A Digital Image – Know your graphics files and how to use them. 1Craft Project Tips for Botanical Prints – Scrapbooking, cards, boxes and cross-stitch. 2Adjusting Digital Images – Getting the images from screen to paper perfectly. 5The Botanical Illustration Databases Online –Where to go and what to look for. 6Missouri Botanical Garden Library 10

Copyright ©2006 Maureen Gilmer, Published by MoPress, All Rights ReservedDesign by Revert Graphics

MoPlantsG arden uidesGONLINE BOTANICAL ILLUSTRATIONS

A TREASURE TROVE OF FREE IMAGES FOR DIGITAL CRAFTS

Maureen “Mo” Gilmer

Thirty years experience in landscape designand horticulture is the foundation forMaureen “Mo” Gilmer’s success as one ofAmerica’s top garden communicators. Amongher many accomplishments are fifteen books, anationally syndicated column, and nationaltelevision show. Her dedication to empower-ing people to create more beautiful and satisfy-ing gardens inspired Mo to develop the new E-Book Series: MoPlants Garden Guides. OnlineBotanical Illustrations: A Treasure Trove of FreeImages for Digital Crafts is designed to help youdiscover Mo’s favorite treasure troves of freebotanical pictures to give your decorations andcrafts an unmistakable garden style.

Botanical IllustrationsRecently a major lifestyle magazine proposed readers tearup old books to extract botanical prints of ferns todecoupage onto an old dresser. While the finished productwas cute, the idea of destroying beautiful old gardeningand natural history books is unnecessary. The article’sassertion that such books can be purchased affordably atgarage sales or used bookstores today is ten years out ofdate. Bargains like that disappeared a long time ago.

In the past decade the evolution of the Internet has cre-ated a whole new way to get beautiful botanical art forhome and craft projects. Huge archives of old books, mag-azines and catalogs have been mined for images scannedand posted online. Many of these sites are maintained bythe government and other institutions. These image data-bases are easy to access and browse online and offer virtualtreasure troves of botanical art just a few clicks away. Theonline art offers better quality than a traditional book. Thisart is searchable, and simple to browse via thumbnailimages. Plus, digital images are easier to store, retrieve,alter and size to fit any project.

It is important to read the rights language on anywebsite to ensure what you’re planning doesn’t violatethe source’s copyright.

What Makes a Digital Image Digital images are available in various formats in onlinearchives. The most versatile type of digital image is aJPEG. JPEGs are compatible with most photo-manag-ing software products and fit into virtually every applica-tion. Larger images contained in online databases arenormally in TIFF or GIF format. BMP images, or

bitmaps, function well with online websites, but thisform is not ideal for other applications. Most of theseimage formats can be changed to a JPEG once they havebeen downloaded onto your computer. It is always agood idea to keep your images stored uniformly in JPEGformat whenever possible to ensure they are alwaysaccessible.

The size of the image will have a significant impacton how quickly it will download through your Internetconnection. If you have a slow speed connection, largerimages will take a long time, and some may fail to loadaltogether. If the download hangs up midway through,your computer probably cannot accommodate thatimage size.

Whenever possible, check the archive data beforeyou proceed to determine the size of the image you wishto download. Consider images under one megabyte insize as ideal for most modems. Any image over onemegabyte may require a DSL or cable modem to down-load efficiently. Images larger than two megabytes in sizecan become problematic and larger files with super highresolution should be avoided altogether. These superhigh resolution downloads are typical of certain govern-ment archives, but most Web sites will give you a file sizeprompt to determine whether or not you want their full-sized image.

Dots per inch, or dpi refers to the density of animage. Typically, images found on Web sites are 72 dpi,which enables quick loading and viewing. Pictures con-tained in databases may have a higher dpi option. Thehigher the dpi the better the image quality will be whenyou print it. The dpi also dictates how much you cancrop the image if you wish to only show a portion of animage. A low dpi image that is cropped and blown upmay have visible pixels. After downloading an image youcan sometimes use individual programs to increase thedpi of the image.

MMOOPPLLAANNTTSS GGAARRDDEENN GGUUIIDDEESS • Online Botanical Illustrations www.moplants.com 1

The Blue Egyptian Water Lily from The Temple of Flora

Edges MatterMany of the older images have really interesting edges thatare the actual edge of the paper as it was scanned. Theycan be irregular, discolored and offer beautiful character toa project. You may also find hand written or beautifullyprinted plant names at the bottom too. Water stains,stamps and odd marks on the drawings give them evenmore character. Don’t be too quick to crop these off oralter the image to lighten the background because you maylose their old fashioned quality.

Ideas for Botanical CraftsHoliday cards: Use pine tree images, pumpkin vines andagrarian harvest scenes.Calendar: Use bulbs for spring, a variety of flowers forsummer, harvest vegetables and trees for fall, snowdrops,holly, evergreens and poinsettia for winter.Gift wrap: Design your own botanical gift wraps for a spe-cial presentation.Invitations: Nothing says romance like vintage botanicalprints, especially for bridal shower and wedding invitations.Stationery: Integrate botanicals into letterhead, envelopesand note sheets.Memory books: Enhance a special memory with beautifulbotanical images. Handmade books: Cut and paste illustrations galore forvisual excellence.Gift boxes: Make an exquisite botanical box, the perfectkeepsake. Iron-on: Create botanical print fabric for quilting, bags,bandannas and shirts.Scrapbooking: Save money and choose from a huge freeselection of images.Altered books: Finally, a ready source for treasured art nou-veau and floral images.Altered art: Turn everyday objects into works of art withvintage images.Journal art: Your writing becomes visual when paired withbotanicals and photos.

Decoupage: Let your printer turn your home into a charm-ing floral cottage. Herbarium: Combine collected and pressed plants with realbotanical images. Plant albums: Document your garden with a visual scrap-book album of your flowers.Collage: Mixed media using vintage, hand tinted black andwhite images is magical.Field journal: Illustrate your hiker’s journal with naturalwildflower illustrations. Coloring book: Anatomically correct coloring books bringbotanical details alive.

Craft Project Tips for Botanical PrintsProject: Greeting CardsCreating your own beautiful botanical print cards is funand easy. There are two basic ways to do it. You can sim-ply print an image, hand trim it, and paste it on a blankcard. Another option is to use a computer program thatallows you to electronically assemble the whole card andprint it directly onto blank card stock.

A hand-trimmed paste-up card allows you to writeyour own message on the interior. It also allows you topaste more images and a printed message inside the cardto give it more visual appeal. A hand-trimmed botanicalimage that includes the original page edge can be cut

MMOOPPLLAANNTTSS GGAARRDDEENN GGUUIIDDEESS • Online Botanical Illustrations www.moplants.com 2

Document your garden with an illustrated journal.

Pine botanical illustrations make beautiful Christmas cards.

&&IPS TRICKSGraphic files contain a lot of data compared to text files. Justa few very high resolution images can be a strain on an ordi-nary hard drive. It is wise to keep your downloaded imagessaved on CDs in order to keep your hard drive space available.

with an X-Acto knife to retain that uniquely irregularperimeter. The downside is that you must position yourbotanical art square to the card, which can take a squareedge to get it just right. A glue stick or scrapbook adhe-sives are ideal for this project in order to avoid moisturethat could make the paper ripple. Paste-up cards guaran-tee perfect image quality on virtually any color or texturecard stock paper.

An electronic greeting card is easier because you haveall of the elements assembled on the computer where youknow everything is square and perfect. The downside isthat you have to get it onto a blank card using your print-er. This can be more difficult with some printers thanothers. You will be limited to using blank white cardsbecause you are printing your picture onto that paper.When you print color pictures onto colored paper, thepaper color will conflict with the botanical image alteringthe color. You may not be pleased with the result.

Project: Botanical Image Cross StitchCross stitch is the easiest way to transfer your botanicalimages to needlework projects. Since you visually trans-fer the pattern rather than printing it on the fabric, allyou need to do is break up an image into small squares,each representing a single cross stitch. The simplest wayto do this is to purchase graph paper with small, printed

grids. The smaller the grid, the more stitches you’ll getand the finer the image will look on fabric. Just print thepicture onto the grid paper, match the colors with flossand begin counting.

Another more complex way to achieve the sameresult is to use a photo-enhancing program which doesn’t require pre-gridded paper. Adobe Photoshop®for example allows you to break a picture into grids within the program and print the gridded image.

To see examples of beautifully rendered botanicalimage cross stitch projects, visit Heartland HouseDesigns: http://www.heartlandhouse.com/docs/botani-cals.htm

Project: Boxes Very few decorations can transform a box like beautifulbotanical images. Antique flower illustrations trimmedand pasted onto a plain gift box can be so attractive youwon’t need wrapping at all! Even a brown cardboard boxwhen matched with the right rustic illustrations, thenembellished with fresh leaves or tree bark can render athrow-away container into the highlight of a birthdayparty. It’s really all about matching the right image tothe right container.

Old wood boxesand even flaking metalones are perfect candi-dates for decoupage.The USDA seed cata-log cover images aredarling accents forupgrading a rustylunch pail or cigarbox. Smaller imagescan turn a cast offmint tin into a beauti-ful gift box filled withspecial seed or candy.

When workingwith images on a box,it’s important to usethe right glue to stickthe paper image to thebackground surface.

MMOOPPLLAANNTTSS GGAARRDDEENN GGUUIIDDEESS • Online Botanical Illustrations www.moplants.com 3

Card Making SuppliesUsing beautiful paper and card stock to create your ownpersonalized greetings can enhance the beauty of anybotanical illustration. Paper Mojo: Without question the hottest creative papersource on the InternetScrapbook Supplier: Super white and colored cards andmatching envelopesBlick Art Supplies: X-Acto knives, glue and a full rangeof art materials

Needlework SuppliesWhether you’re using iron-on to transfer botanical imagesonto fabric for quilting or are simply transferring images tocounted cross stitch, Joann.com will have the suppliesyou’ll need.

Make a box for keepsakes decoratedwith seed catalog covers.

Tacky white paste or similar products designated for flatpaper projects is ideal. Once all is dry coat the objectwith Mod Podge, which won’t cause the images to run orsmear. You will see when it dries your images will havean attractive, moisture resistant clear finish.

Project: Botanical ScrapbookingIn Victorian times it was popular to create scrapbooksfor just about everything. Today we do much the samewith memory scrapbook projects. Instead of using storebought scrapbooking supplies, you can use free botanicalimages to create rich, multimedia projects that willbecome your most treasured keepsakes. You will savemoney using these images because you don’t buy ready-made materials – you find them online or in nature. It

would amaze you how much is out there if you’re look-ing for it. You can hunt for scrapbooking items whileyou get exercise on a hike, wander peacefully in nature,scan the roadside or relax in your own backyard. Whenyou combine these natural materials with treasured pho-tographs and backgrounds using a variety of botanicalimages, the results will be extraordinary.

The benefit of using online botanical images is youcan print them to the exact size you want for your pagelayout. A single download can be used many times,whether you use all or part of the image for a wide rangeof design schemes.

Pay attention to the paper color background for thedigital image itself. Its tone will relate as much to yourpage as the image. Line drawings can also be printed andcolored in with the hues that best match your page idea.The options are only limited by your imagination.

MMOOPPLLAANNTTSS GGAARRDDEENN GGUUIIDDEESS • Online Botanical Illustrations www.moplants.com 4

Spotted tiger lilies.

&&IPS TRICKSIt’s an easy process to press leaves and flowers for your botani-cal art projects. Select a heavy book that you might otherwisethrow away. (Old medical books are great!). Lay the bookopen flat and insert leaves and flowers into the slot at thebinding. Close the book and stack a few more books on topof it for weight. In a few weeks the materials will be fully dry.Store finished material flat in the pages of another clean book.

Pressed wildflowers identified in a journal.

&&IPS TRICKSKeep a sharp eye out to collect free natural decorations forscrapbooking. Look for: leaf skeletons, flat seeds, thin treebark, palm fibers, cotton or seed fluff, lichens, moss, seaweed.

Scrapbooking SuppliesYou’ll want acid free paper and the proper adhesives tointroduce botanical images into your scrapbooking proj-ects. Special scissors and blades will help you cut parts ofthe illustrations too. Check this source for a wide range ofsupplies: ScrapbookPal.com

Pressed Plant Scrapbook Herbarium is really a fancy term for a pressed plantscrapbook or album. It evolved in a time when newlydiscovered plants were pressed in the field. These collec-tions were then kept on file at universities for namingand classification. Creating an herbarium or naturealbum with kids is a great way to get them tuned into thenatural world. You can start building an album whilecamping or visiting a new destination rich with a lushenvironment. What a great educational experience forthem as they learn to use their creativity too.

Learn how to create a home made plant press to takeon your trip for gathering plants by visiting the follow-ing Web site. Here you’ll find a detailed online bookthat provides helpful instructions. Visit http://www.fun-sci.com, click on Fun Science Gallery and go to the listof projects entitled “Other”, then click on Herbarium.This extensive, well-illustrated article will show you howto make the press, how to press plants and dry themproperly, as well as how to mount, label and organize itall. Although it’s meant to introduce children to plantcollecting and naming, it may just capture your interestas well. This is a five star project that will go on for yearsto chronicle every walk in the woods, every hike andevery trip to the park.

Controlled Chaos: Altered Books and Mixed Media JournalsThe less traveled path of paper art is the crazy street artstep-cousin to scrapbooking: altered books. Alteredbooks grew out of assemblage art and collage. This dif-fers from basic scrapbooking and memory albumsbecause they are not created around photographs offriends and family. Instead, this is an art form thatevolved among those on a tight budget or who enjoyunusual forms of recycling.

Altered books are created from standard boundbooks you can buy for less than a dollar at thrift stores orgarage sales. The pages are pasted together to create a sin-gle, thick page upon which the journal art is created.Sometimes the original type or image on the printedbook page shows through, while other times it’s com-pletely obliterated.

Illustrated journals evolved from journaling whenthe writer wished to add more visual interest to theirwritten words. These books and journals are createdwithout rules and often appear chaotic, yet incrediblyrich. Every new page brings forth a separate creationwith a fresh theme and direction. For the nature loverwho spends a great deal of time writing about the wild

places they visit, this is an exceptional means of illustrat-ing a journal rich with observations and memories. Forthe collage artist enchanted with the beauty and sub-stance of nature, botanical illustrations and plant mate-rials offer a truly organic palette.

Adjusting Your Digital ImagesSSiizzee The beauty of using digital images rather than clip-ping them from static printed sources is that you controlthe size. You can print one large image or dozens ofsmaller images on a single sheet of paper. The chief limitto size is the pixel density of the original image. If youare enlarging too much you will eventually see the indi-vidual pixels.

BBrriigghhttnneessss Picture-enhancing programs allow you toadjust the brightness of an image. If a botanical imageappears too dark, you can brighten the image beforeprinting. To avoid a washed out look, be careful not tobrighten the image too much. You can compensate forlightening an image by increasing the color saturation.

CCoolloorr ssaattuurraattiioonn The more color in an image the morecolor-saturated it becomes. Dull and listless images canbe brightened using color saturation options in commondigital photo enhancing programs. You can also increasethe saturation of an entire image. Programs such asAdobe Photoshop® let you increase the saturation ofindividual colors, such as red or green, while leaving therest of the colors unchanged.

HHuuee You can also change the hue of a picture in someprograms. Hue refers to the relationship between colorsin a picture. You can alter the hue to make yellow or redthe more dominant color and all the other shades willchange too. Sometimes changing the hue of an imagecan result in incredible surprises. Hue can also removeall colors within a picture, thus changing a color pictureto a black and white picture.

MMOOPPLLAANNTTSS GGAARRDDEENN GGUUIIDDEESS • Online Botanical Illustrations www.moplants.com 5

Field journals feature herbarium style pressed plant specimens.

MMOOPPLLAANNTTSS GGAARRDDEENN GGUUIIDDEESS • Online Botanical Illustrations www.moplants.com 6

The Botanical Illustration Databases Online

National Agricultural Libraryhttp://www.nal.usda.gov/speccoll/ The USDA has gathered over a century or more oftremendous archives of plant related materials. Whenyou log on to this page you can access Special Collectionsof vintage graphics from their files. It can be difficult tofind these special collections in their entirety so we’veprovided the URL that leads you straight to the listing ofthe collections. Not all of these have botanical imagesbut a few are worth exploring.

The Henry G. Gilbert Nursery and Seed Trade CatalogCollection http://www.nal.usda.gov/speccoll/collect/nurs-ery/nursery.html is a gorgeous collection of graphic coversof old seed catalogs. They are as detailed as fruit crate artand just as appealing. Click on the catalog images to revealthe column of thumbnail images. Click on an image and a

larger version will appear. Save the images directly fromthe larger version.

Listed under Rare Book Collection is a compendi-um of images extracted from 164 volumes of TheBotanical Magazine published in the 18th century. Tofind the images scroll down to the bottom of the bulletlist and click on http://www.nal.usda.gov/curtis. Thiswill lead you to the home page of this database of pic-tures. You can searchfor what you wantby plant name, oruse the alphabeticalindex. To save animage double clickon the thumbnail forthe larger versionand save as a JPEG.

Printer SuppliesThe right printer and plenty of color ink will make yourdigital images into paper art. Save money by ordering yourcomputer and printer supplies online at Tiger Direct.

From the Henry G.Gilbert Nursery andSeed Trade Catalog

Collection

Paper and Media The kind of paper you use will have a lot to dowith how your botanical illustrations print.Remember, the more expensive the paper, thebetter the results. The same applies to printersbecause high-end models will carry better inkcartridges with a greater range of inks. For exam-ple, a good photo printer will contain five differ-ent colored ink cartridges while a standard colorprinter will have just one cartridge containingthree colors. Some experts claim it’s best to usethe same brand name paper as your printerbecause the manufacturer has developed them towork together. Here are some considerations forchoosing quality paper:

WWeeiigghhtt Paper thickness is expressed in pounds. Cheap copy paper is 20 lb. Good quality color image print paper isusually 24 or 28 lb or higher. This is ideal for botanical images. Super heavy brochure paper at 36 and 44 lb may bedifficult for some printers to handle, but it makes the best stock for greeting cards. Beware that your printer may notbe capable of using heavy weight papers.

SSuurrffaaccee The surface quality of the paper matters a lot. Cheap copy paper has a porous surface. Color inks can soakin to diffuse the sharpness of an image. Premium papers will feature a more-dense surface in matte or gloss to ensurecolor pictures print clearly. Photo papers will feature a super-gloss, semi-gloss or matte finish on just one side.

BBrriigghhttnneessss In general, brighter white paper will result in an image more faithful to the original color.

Changing the hue can alter color scheme options of the same picture

The USDA Pomological WatercolorCollection is a fabulous trove of exquis-itely rendered pictures of fruits. Click toreach the home page for this collectionand either search or browse the images.These images are in GIF format whichyou can change to JPEGs if you wishonce they’re downloaded.http://www.nal.usda.gov/speccoll/

The New York Public Library DigitalGalleryhttp://digitalgallery.nypl.orgIt’s no surprise to learn that this gallerywas named Best Research Site on theweb for 2006. The library has accom-plished a Herculean task of digitizingtheir graphic collections. On the homepage you’ll find a simple bar of cate-gories. Above the bar is an Explorebutton. Click on the Explore pulldown menu and choose Nature &Science. Next, scroll down and clickon Nature Illustrated: Flower, Plantsand Trees 1550-1900 click on“Collection Contents”.

This is the portal to 24 of the mostextensive collections of botanicalimages in the world. Grouped by theirsources, which are books published inthe Old World and the New, every-thing you could ever want is here. Todownload click on the thumbnail toget the data page on the plant, thendouble click on that image to get thelargest version.

In these collections are a fifteenthcentury Canadian flora and some trulywonderful illustrations:

• American Medical Botany contains asuperior collection of native NorthAmerican plants.

• A Curious Herbal by ElizabethBlackwell – Detailed line drawingsfor the art of physic.

• P.J. Redoute the famous artist whopainted French roses is well repre-sented here in Les Roses as are hislily images in Les Lilliacees.

• Orchidaceae of Mexico & Guatemalais an oustanding collection fromthis largest family in the plantworld.

• La Plante Et Ses ApplicationsOrnementales is a heart stoppingfull color Art Nouveau work thatwill leave you breathless.

• A Description of the Genus Pinus isthe site for finding great winter hol-iday images of pine trees and cones.

• The Ferns of Great Britain is a treas-ure trove of images for art and craftt.

Go back to the Digital Gallery home

page and type “Gardens” into the

search engine in the upper right hand

corner. This will yield hundreds of

photographic images.Among them are

sepia tone stereoscopic views, but you’ll

also find a wealth of hand colored vin-

tage garden photos!

MMOOPPLLAANNTTSS GGAARRDDEENN GGUUIIDDEESS • Online Botanical Illustrations www.moplants.com 7

A pink mallow from The BotanicalMagazine collection.

Art nouveau style plant graphicsfrom La Plante Et Ses Applications

Ornementales

Rosa muscosa from Redoute’sfamous French rose paintings.

Orchids from Orchidaceae ofMexico and Guatemala

Australian Department ofEnvironment and Heritagehttp://www.anbg.gov.au./gallery/colour.htmlThe flora of Australia is consideredamong the most unique in the worldbecause it evolved in relative isolation.Many of its native species have comeinto American gardens and are verycommon plants in California and thewest. The government has created anextensive database of botanical illus-trations of these plants at this site

which you can download and use.While a few are more contemporaryrenderings, the majority are stunningVictorian works of nature art.

Natural History Museum,London: The Endeavor BotanicalIllustrationshttp://www.nhm.ac.uk/To find the image gallery choose"Nature Online" then "OnlineExhibitions". This database chroni-cles the botanical voyage of Sir Joseph

Banks of the Royal BotanicalGardens at Kew on the ship,Endeavor in the mid 18th century.These works are primarily SouthernHemisphere plants. The databasecan be searched by family or genusand species or by country of origin.Be sure to activate “gallery” view tomake the search easier. It does notprovide a browsing option which canbe daunting to anyone not trained inhorticulture.

Wageningen UR The Bulip Bookof P. Coshttp://library.wur.nl/tulips/In the Special Collections ofWageningen UR Library is one ofthe rarest books on old tulips in theworld, published in 1637. This website includes all of the original illus-trations from the book which areexquisite. To access the images scrolldown to the very bottom of thisintroductory page and click on “con-tents list” to access the names of eachimage, then click on the numbernext to each name to see the pictures.

MMOOPPLLAANNTTSS GGAARRDDEENN GGUUIIDDEESS • Online Botanical Illustrations www.moplants.com 8

A wealth of parterre patterns can be found by searching “gardens”.

Native Australian shrub, Banksia coccinea.

Passionflower from the 18th centuryEndeavor botanical voyage.

An early color herbal page at the PurdueUniversity site.

Purdue University Images of Botanical andHorticultural Illustrationshttp://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/history/lec-ture39/images.htmlThe set up at this Web site is a bit different because it’s aslide show for a college course on plant illustration. Itcontains a great chronological guide to the evolution ofthe art of illustrations. To access the system, note that theright frame scrolls down to reveal thumbnail prints.Click on these prints to obtain the larger version in thecentral field – download from this version.

Yale Medical Library Fuchs Botanical - 1545http://info.med.yale.edu/library/historical/fuchs/From the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library you’ll find areally great resource for medieval woodcut illustrations.There are 516 woodcuts of plants in all, some of themhand colored and all scanned from the originals. Theonline document allows you to go to any page directly byclicking on it rather than having to use a search engine.This way you can work through the entire book image byimage. It is truly a remarkable database and worth a visitjust to learn the extent of medical and plant knowledgein the 16th century.

University of Delaware Library The Art of BotanicalIllustrationhttp://www.lib.udel.edu/ud/spec/exhibits/hort/These images were posted in concert with a 2001 exhib-it of the library’s collection of illustrated botanical andhorticultural books. Included are sections on: Herbals,Travel & Exploration, Scientific Botany, Women Artists,Seed Catalogs and Modern Botanicals. Though notextensive, it is a neat little collection with a broad rangeof image types that are easy to access and download.

A Final Message from MoNow you can access all of my favorite digital sources forbotanical illustrations. This is a beautiful time-honoredart that was lost for a time in dusty libraries and rare oldbooks. Thanks to the digital revolution and the Internet,these archives have been opened so everyone can enjoytheir history, color and artistic styles. What these artistspainstakingly created centuries ago is now in your handsto render in a million new ways with twenty-first centu-ry technology.

Be sure to visit Digital Craft Central for more resources and information on digital crafting athttp://www.moplants.com/ and join the gardeningenthusiasts at my blog the MoZone for design ideas, gar-dening tips, great shopping values and everyday inspira-tion. -- Mo

MMOOPPLLAANNTTSS GGAARRDDEENN GGUUIIDDEESS • Online Botanical Illustrations www.moplants.com 9

University of Delaware’s images include those by woman artists.

A woodblock illustration of Monkshood in the 1545 edition ofFuchs Botanical at Yale Medical Library.

PLEASE NOTEAt the time this eBook was posted on MoPlants.com all links were live and accurate. From time to time the Web sites we refer you to canchange. Please check back to Digital Crafts Central on MoPlants.com where all of the links will reside and be updated for accuracy.

Missouri Botanical Garden Library - The Illustrated Gardenhttp://www.illustratedgarden.org

This library contains one of the world’s greatest collections of rare horticultural and botanical books. Little knownoutside botanical circles, this virtual treasure trove is your most fertile ground for illustrations.

In a massive undertaking, the Missouri Botanical Garden has generously digitized sixty-three of their rare booksto make the pictures in them readily available to you. At the Illustrated Garden site they are listed by their originalbook titles, which are often in Latin or French and somewhat scientific. The plants are also listed by botanical name,and many of these have changed since they were published.

To make the Missouri Botanical Garden books more accessible to you, we translated the titles and organized theirindividual links at MoPlants.com.

These highlights illustrate some of their finest digital titles:

MMOOPPLLAANNTTSS GGAARRDDEENN GGUUIIDDEESS • Online Botanical Illustrations www.moplants.com 10

Iconograph of the Genus Camellia Natural History of Palms

Temple of Flora Les Fleurs Animees

PLEASE NOTEAt the time this eBook was posted on MoPlants.com all links were live and accurate. From time to time the Web sites we refer you to canchange. Please check back to Digital Crafts Central on MoPlants.com where all of the links will reside and be updated for accuracy.