It is the middle of summer. The flowers have reached their potential and hang on for the remaining of their days. The Earth is thirsty, though we finally felt rain this week after so much heat. While I usually have roses on my table, I chose a happy bunch of sunflowers since the forecast was rainy. It’s interesting how differently the mood shifts with a flower, even though I do this for a living, the effect is not lost on me. This week has been a quiet one of going through my library of books, some of my most precious possessions. I had long thoughts on what goes into a collection, what makes me return to a book while others are still being read. It made me think about why we hold onto items, whether sentiment or purpose and it made me linger over this particular book on the shelf, Besler’s “Florilegium”.

Anything involving flowers is highly sentimental to me for a myriad of reasons. My earliest and fondest memories of enchantment are from wandering around my grandmother’s garden and the wildflowers of New England. It is also my passion and business. That being said, I am also attracted by the scientific if not medicinal utility of flora. “Florilegium” is historical in the context of botany. It captures the globally procured plants of a famous 17th-century Renaissance garden, the Garden of Eichstätt in Germany. One of the earliest examples of assembling plant slides for comprehensive observational and medicinal purposes moving away from historically mystical properties and context.

Science aside, I appreciate the book is organized by season and the plates serve as both a color and texture reference that helps inform design. It is a useful bridge for the mainstream flowers I typically design with to more thoughtful and special varieties I should consider working with. In any event, the book is a treasure.