Roots to Seeds: 400 Years of Oxford Botany

Oxford has a long history of collecting plant specimens, botanical illustrations, and rare books on plant classification, collecting, and plant biology, which are essential for the study of botany at the University. This book showcases the botanists and collections that have contributed to our understanding of plant biology over the past four centuries, including Ferdinand Bauers illustrations for Flora Graeca and rare plant specimens from the herbaria.

Format: Hardback
Length: 224 pages
Publication date: 14 May 2021
Publisher: Bodleian Library

Since 1621, the foundation of the Oxford Botanic Garden, Oxford has amassed an exceptional collection of plant specimens, botanical illustrations, and rare books on plant classification, collecting, and plant biology. These archives, along with the living plants in the Garden, are essential to the study of botany at the University. This book profiles the botanists and collections that have contributed to transforming our understanding of plant biology over the past four centuries, focusing on plant classification, experimental botany, building botanical collections, agriculture and forestry, and botanical education. Highlights include a selection of Ferdinand Bauers renowned illustrations for Flora Graeca, an extraordinarily lavish and detailed eighteenth-century botanical publication of plants found in the Eastern Mediterranean, and rare plant specimens from the herbaria, such as Fairchilds Mule (the first artificially created hybrid plant). Together with seventeenth-century herbals, elegant garden plans, plant models, and fossil slides, these items from the archives all help to tell the story of botanical science in Oxford and the intrepid botanists who devoted themselves to the essential study of plants.

Weight: 1416g
Dimension: 244 x 269 x 27 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781851245611