The pictures are wonderful, Ann, by which I mean all of them because I had to look at all the pages. Mark Cateby's birds are very beautiful and I also enjoyed some of Richard Waller's flowers, especially his portrait of an iris. Thank you for this uplifting experience. The news on TV is all bad and it was healing to see that man (and woman) is also capable of creating something of beauty and worth.

Ingrid

Thank you Ann. What a pleasure it is to look at these.

Thanks Ann, lovely engravings.

Are you sure there is a blue poppy (Meconopsis)?

The only blue flower looks like Centaurea cyanus, (Bachelor's button)?

You're right, True-Blue.
I was also wandering through other Blackwell sites and that's where I picked up the blue poppy.
Here's a link

Here is a link that might be useful: 'called a black poppy'

If ever a woman deserved to be immortalized in a movie, Elizabeth Blackwell should be at the head of the line.

For starts read this:

Here is a link that might be useful: A Curious Herbal, the story of

Thanks for the bio, courageous loyal woman.

It seems that the link you send might have been photoshopped.

Maybe the link below is closer to the reality.

Bob

Here is a link that might be useful: Papaver nigrum

I would love to see her life as a movie, but also that of Maria Sibylla Merian. Both women made great contributions to art and science, and ought to be household names...

Come to think of it, Catesby's life might make a good film also- so little is known about him, there would be plenty of room for speculative 'embroidering' of the narrative...

Thanks for the link to the engravings- lovely!

Virginia

I love looking at old plates and these are truly wonderful, thanks!

I got seeds for two different kinds of blue poppies, Himalayan and Hungarian Blue poppies, this spring and tried to start them. Sadly none of the grew.. :(

Beautiful engravings, and a very interesting story behind them. One of the things that caught my attention was how her "shady character" of a husband, during his time in prison, identified the plants and "provided their names in several different languages". His story seems to fascinating, too.

The Missouri Botanical Garden has digitized their copy of her Herbal, which is a second edition and a bit hard to read because it's printed in German Fractur, but the illustrations are there.

Here is a link that might be useful: The second edition

Ann thanks for the link. That's a colossal work, she's done.

I find it sad that The Royal Society sells prints, which have been altered from the original. Even the bachelor's buttons have been altered.

Seil unless you have cool summers and a nice shady/ moist spot, it is very difficult to grow Meconopsis.

I've had a lot of success with Flanders & Turkish poppies (Papaver rhoeas & glaucum). You just direct sow them at the end of winter.