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Out of the notable interests in Mrs. Mellon’s life, the one that exceeded all others was her love and appreciation for plants. This is of course most embodied in her personal gardens which are a culmination of her ever-evolving design influence and style. This love was also reflected in other aspects such as the touches in her home at Oak Spring and in the collections of her library. In honor of our founder, Rachel “Bunny” Lambert Mellon, this blog we touch on an equally enduring legacy of botanical illustrator Margaret Stones.
The Oak Spring Garden Library holds books from vast parts of the globe. You can take a tour of the flora of Australia, China, Brazil and more. There are other volumes that take the focus to a more local scale, like Wildflowers of Georgetown. This work highlights the spring plants found in Georgetown, DC; some of which are in flower right now across the region. Read below to learn more about this latest digital introduction and to hear from our Head of Biodiversity Conservation on why it’s a gem of a resource.
One woman who was instrumental in the shift towards ecologically accurate illustrations was Maria Sibylla Merian. Born on this day in 1647, Merian created striking works and is regarded as the first ecologist of Europe. Learn more about her work and to watch a video by Merian scholar Dr. Kay Etheridge.
Born today in 1803, Marianne North spent her life dedicating herself to the pursuit of seeing and painting plants in faraway places. These paintings were done in non-traditional methods by Victorian standards but left a colorful lasting legacy at Kew Gardens. In our latest blog post read about Marianne’s travels and see some of her vibrant paintings.
As we begin to transition away from summer and move into fall, mushrooms are starting to pop up in the landscape. While spring is often thought of as the prime time to forage for edible mushrooms like the highly sought morels, the months of September and October also see their fair share of fungi. Read on to learn about a few of the female scientists and illustrators whose early work informed our understanding of mushrooms today.
Mary Vaux Walcott was a botanist, glaciologist, and outdoorswoman who created close to 1,000 botanical sketches and illustrations in her lifetime. The Smithsonian published nearly 400 of her illustrations, all of which were done in the rugged landscape of the Canadian Alps.
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.
