Contact Us

Use the form on the right to contact us.

You can edit the text in this area, and change where the contact form on the right submits to, by entering edit mode using the modes on the bottom right. 

         

123 Street Avenue, City Town, 99999

(123) 555-6789

email@address.com

 

You can set your address, phone number, email and site description in the settings tab.
Link to read me page with more information.

DSC_0398.JPG

Blog Posts

Filtering by Category: Library

Sisters in Botanical Illustration

OSGF

If the Brontë sisters are celebrity siblings of the writing world, then sisters Elizabeth and Margaret Wharton are the unsung stars from the “golden age” of botanical illustration. In honor of Women’s History month we are highlighting two sisters, whose works underscore the importance of women’s place in the formation of botany and scientific illustration. Read on to learn about their contributions and to view these women’s works in full as part of our ongoing digitization project.

Read More

Carolus Clusius

OSGF

Over the past several years, select rare books, manuscripts, paintings, and other objects have been professionally digitized. In honor of this exciting new project, we’re kicking things off with a work by Flemish botanist, Carolus Clusius, whose birthday also just so happens to be today. Clusius is regarded as one of the most influential botanists of pre-Linnaean times, having contributed nearly 600 descriptions of plants and overseeing the formation of one of Europe's first botanical gardens, Hortus Botanicus Leiden.

Read More

Coffee and Climate Change

OSGF

When Ellis discovered the fragrant and popular plant, he wrote an introduction to An Historical Account of Coffee describing the flower and fruit. While many of Ellis’ affiliated contemporaries studied plants, he was not only interested in growing them: he was most interested in the culture plants created. By the time he caught wind of Coffea arabica, it was most prominent as a beverage consumed while people assembled “in crowds to pass the time agreeably.” In 2017, we face the threat of losing the cultural staple to climate change.

Read More

John Ellis and the Venus Flytrap

OSGF

Charles Darwin once said that the Venus flytrap was “one of the most wonderful [plants] in the world.” The carnivorous plant was discovered in North Carolina, soon to become one of the most fascinating studies in plant discoveries during the 18th century. Behind the doors of the Oak Spring Garden Library is a manuscript of England’s first formally recorded encounter with Dionaea muscipula.

Read More

Anna Maria Hussey

OSGF

As part of an initiative to increase recognition of the role that women have played in the development of plant science through botanical art, the Oak Spring Garden Foundation has been hosting interns to visit the Library and research our collections. One of the women researched was Anna Maria Hussey, an artist and mycologist.

Read More

Elizabeth Blackwell

OSGF

The Oak Spring Garden Library houses the works of many great women artists in its collection -- most of whom were ahead of their time in one way or another. One of these women, Elizabeth Blackwell (1707-1758), is best remembered for A Curious Herbal, which was conceived and published under curious circumstances. The Oak Spring Garden Library has a copy of both volumes of A Curious Herbal, along with 73 of the original manuscript paintings she did for the book. Here is her story.

Read More