Indian Reed
Canna indica

American Cowslip
Dodecatheon meadia

Round-Leaf Sundew
Drosera rotundifolia

Lamb of Tartary
Cibotium barometz

Sensitive Plant
Mimosa pudica

Peruvian Bark Tree
Cinchona officinalis

Golden Shower Tree
Cassia fistula

Night-Blowing Cereus
Selenicereus grandiflorus

Pheasant’s-Eye
Adonis annua

Indian Reed
Canna indica

American Cowslip
Dodecatheon meadia

Round-Leaf Sundew
Drosera rotundifolia

Lamb of Tartary
Cibotium barometz

Sensitive Plant
Mimosa pudica

Peruvian Bark Tree
Cinchona officinalis

Golden Shower Tree
Cassia fistula

Night-Blowing Cereus
Selenicereus grandiflorus

Pheasant’s-Eye
Adonis annua

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Pheasant’s-Eye Adonis annua

Pheasant’s-Eye Adonis annua

Pheasant’s-Eye
Adonis annua

Adonis by Kniphof Adonis by Kniphof

J. H. Kniphof

Botanica in originali  (1739)

J. H. Kniphof
Botanica in originali, seu herbarium vivum

(1739)

“Immediately on the first view of these prints, everyone will have to appreciate and admit that these prints have an advantage over all kinds of botanical representations, and, when they turn out otherwise cleanly, even in front of the splendid copperplate engraving. This is because we avail ourselves of the original for this purpose, and thus we say that the nature in the plants themselves provides for the most precise and accurate copperplates.”

Adonis annua by Bulliard Adonis annua by Bulliard

Pierre Bulliard

Flora Parisiensis  (1776)

Pierre Bulliard
Flora Parisiensis

(1776)

“This plant rises a foot or so: it is found in the fields: it is cultivated in some gardens; it blooms at the end of summer.”

Adonis annua by Curtis Adonis annau by Curtis

William Curtis

Flora Londinensis  (1777)

William Curtis
Flora Londinensis

(1777)

“The Pheasants-eye has a peculiar claim to an insertion in the Flora Londinensis, as it is one of those plants which are annually cried about our streets, under the name of red Morocco: it may nevertheless be doubted, whether it has not originally been conveyed from the garden to the dungheap, and from thence become an ornamental annual weed in many of the corn-fields in Kent, and other Counties adjacent to London, in which it seems as much at home, as the Ranunculus arvensis, or Corn Crowfoot”

Adonis by Vietz Adonis by Vietz

Ferdinand Vietz

Icones plantarum (1806)

Ferdinand Vietz
Icones plantarum

(1806)

“This species of Adonis, just as the preceding one, is raised in pleasure gardens because of its diversity, in parterres, flowerbeds, and the like; and one must plant it yearly always again from seeds. To this end, the seed is sown in the fall, and in the following spring the young plants then come into sight; if, however, the seed is first sown in spring, then they seldom come to bloom in the same year” but if it does happen, then they first bloom in July and August, and ripen the seed in October.”

Adonis by Reichenbach Adonis by Reichenbach

H. G. L. Reichenbach

Iconographia botanica  (1826)

H. G. L. Reichenbach
Iconographia botanica

(1826)

“I do not regret the admittedly not little effort, which I applied to the elucidation of the species of this genus, because I hope finally to have found characteristics, according to which the beginner—if he today sought Adonis species, certainly pitiable—can also find the species of this genus. I went midway: as I avoided on one side the path upon which a train of varying species is led, on the other, where in the proximity of truth, yet, through excessive constriction, the goal is passed over. After closer consideration, this could finally be found both easily and surely.”

Adonis herbarium specimen Adonis herbarium specimen

J. H. Kellogg

MBG Herbarium Specimen (1938)

J. H. Kellogg
MBG Herbarium

(1938)

Herbarium Specimen

Location: Missouri, Jefferson County, Festus.

Collector: John Henry Kellogg (20 May 1938).

Determination: G. Yatskievych (1994).

Adonis annua photograph Adonis annua photograph

Alberto Salguero

Adonis annua Detalle Flor (2004)

Alberto Salguero
Adonis annua Detalle Flor

(2004)

Date: 7 April 2004.

Camera: Canon PowerShot A60.

Aperture: ƒ/4.8.

Shutter: 1/320.

Focal Length: 16.21875mm.

Adonis annua photograph Adonis annua photograph

Mark Longair

Pheasant’s-Eye (Adonis annua) (2013)

Mark Longair
Pheasant’s-Eye (Adonis annua)

(2013)

Location: Wakehurst, Sussex, England.

Date: 12 July 2013.

Camera: Canon EOS 500D.

Aperture: ƒ/6.3.

Shutter: 1/250.

Focal Length: 50.0mm.

ISO: 100.

Previous Next
Erasmus Darwin’s The Botanic Garden  (1791)

A hundred virgins join a hundred swains,
And fond Adonis leads the sprightly trains;
Pair after pair, along his sacred groves
To Hymen’s fane the bright procession moves;
Each smiling youth a myrtle garland shades,475
And wreaths of roses veil the blushing maids;
Light Joys on twinkling feet attend the throng,
Weave the gay dance, or raise the frolic song;
—Thick, as they pass, exulting Cupids fling
Promiscuous arrows from the sounding string;480
On wings of gossamer soft Whispers fly,
And the sly Glance steals side-long from the eye.
—As round his shrine the gaudy circles bow,
And seal with muttering lips the faithless vow,
Licentious Hymen joins their mingled hands,485
And loosely twines the meretricious bands.—
Thus where pleased Venus, in the southern main,
Sheds all her smiles on Otaheite’s plain,
Wide o’er the isle her silken net she draws,
And the Loves laugh at all but Nature’s laws.”490

     Here ceased the Goddess,—o’er the silent strings
Applauding Zephyrs swept their fluttering wings;
Enraptur’d Sylphs arose in murmuring crowds
To air-wove canopies and pillowy clouds;
Each Gnome reluctant sought his earthy cell,495
And each bright Floret clos’d her velvet bell.
Then, on soft tiptoe, Night approaching near
Hung o’er the tuneless lyre his sable ear;
Gem’d with bright stars the still etherial plain,
And bad his Nightingales repeat the strain.500

Adonis. l. 468. Many males and many females live together in the same flower. It may seem a solecism of language, to call a flower, which contains many of both sexes, an individual; and more so to call a tree or shrub an individual, which consists of so many flowers. Every tree, indeed, ought to be considered as a family or swarm of its respective buds; but the buds themselves seem to be individual plants; because each has leaves or lungs appropriated to it; and the bark of the tree is only a congeries of the roots of all these individual buds. Thus hollow oak-trees and willows are often seen with the whole wood decayed and gone; and yet the few remaining branches flourish with vigor; but in respect to the male and female parts of a flower, they do not destroy its individuality any more than the number of paps of a sow, or the number of her cotyledons, each of which includes one of her young.

The society, called the Areoi, in the island of Otaheite, consists of about 100 males and 100 females, who form one promiscuous marriage.

(II.4:471—500)

Taxonomy

Linnæan Classification

Class: 13. Polyandria (Many Males)
Order: 12. Polygynia (Many Females)
Genus: Adonis
Species: Adonis annua

Modern Classification

Class: Equisetopsida C. Agardh
Sub-
class:
Magnoliidae Novák ex Takht.
Super-
order:
Ranunculanae Takht.
ex Reveal
Order: Ranunculales Juss.
ex Bercht. & J. Presl
Family: Ranunculaceae Juss.
Genus: Adonis L.
Species: Adonis annua L.
Love, Sex, and Botany

The Adonis annua (sometimes identified in the eighteenth century as A. autumnalis or A. aestivalis) is the final species in Darwin’s The Botanic Garden (1791). It stands in sharp contrast to Canna indica, the species that begins “The Loves of the Plants,” the poem’s second half. Whereas C. indica is a monogamous plant, possessing one stamen and one pistil, A. annua is of the polyandrous class and polygynous order, that is, it possesses many stamens and many pistils. Hence, the “virtuous” monogamy that began the poem is now supplanted by a “licentious Hymen,” the god of marriage who joins this flower in polygamous marriage.

Unlike Darwin’s other depictions of marriage, this passage steps out of the exclusively vegetable world and into the human one by reference to the recent expedition of Captain James Cook. Accompanied by the prominent botanist, Joseph Banks, and student of Linnæus, Daniel Solander, they voyaged to the island of Otaheite. At least, that was how Europeans (and Darwin in his passage) referred to the island in the eighteenth century until a later voyage by Cook, during which linguistic analysis yielded the realization that “O” denotes a definite article, meaning that “Otaheite” was really “Taheite,” or “Tahiti.” The intentions of Cook’s first expedition to Tahiti with Banks and Solander in 1769 were manifold; however, the purpose which instigated it was the opportunity to measure the transit of Venus, which would be visible from the island and explains Darwin’s reference to the planet in the poem. Measuring the transit of Venus would enable a better calculation of the Sun’s distance from the Earth, and, in turn, help to establish the size of the solar system more accurately. Indeed, Darwin invokes this scientific investigation in order to juxtapose the immutability of nature’s laws with the relativity of cultural norms, especially those regarding love and sex.

He broaches this cultural relativity by referring to the sexual practices of the Areoi, the nobility of the island. They lived in sexual freedom or, in Darwin’s words, in one “promiscuous marriage,” thus reflecting the same polygamous condition of A. annua. Darwin never visited Tahiti himself and thus relied on the travelogues of others (like John Hawkesworth’s account, excerpted below) for his information. As one might imagine, these accounts often revealed as much about eighteenth-century English society as it did about Polynesian society.

Darwin’s portrayal of the Areoi is complex. While he does not fail to characterize the marriage as “promiscuous,” “licentious,” and “meretricious,” which, in addition to his representation of the women in his poem more generally as either femme fatales or virtuous ladies, evidences an eighteenth-century normative view of love and sex, Darwin also seems to celebrate the Areoi society, recognizing the arbitrariness of English or any such norms. Linnæus’s sexual system had not only disclosed the sex lives of plants, but also the possibilities open to humans, even if Linnæus’s social conservatism never intended such possibilities to be considered as real. Yet, in Darwin’s final stanza, he transgressed the boundary between the plant and animal kingdom and thus showed the reality of these possibilities for humans. He seized on the libertinism latent within Linnæus’s sexual system.

At the same time, Darwin’s acknowledgment of these new sexual possibilities as real was by no means a univocal support and promotion of them. His tension between championing these new approaches to sex and love and repairing to the socio-cultural ideal of sexual modesty, especially as it applied to women, represents a perduring aspect of the larger strained relationship between women and botany in the eighteenth century.

Linnæus’s taxonomy unabashedly focused on the sex lives of plants and thus immediately invited scrutiny. Consequently, even before the question could be asked whether this system of botany was a proper activity for women, a whole slew of critics showed up to denounce Linnæus’s whole enterprise, with some denying the sexuality of plants outright. (It must be kept in mind that plant sexuality was still a quite recent discovery at that time.) The editor of the Encyclopedia Britannica  (1773), William Smellie, provides a particularly vehement criticism along these lines: “A man would not naturally expect to meet with disgusting strokes of obscenity in a system of botany. But it is a certain fact, that obscenity is the very basis of the Linnæan system. The names of his classes, orders, &c. convey often the vilest and most unnatural ideas” (p. 653).

Darwin was himself party to an acrid dispute concerning the “obscenity” of Linnæus’s system. The other party, William Withering, was one of the first to translate Linnæus’s system into English. His translation, however, achieved more than just finding English equivalents to Linnæus’s Latin, for Withering aimed to present it in an “English dress,” that is, to make it appropriate for women. This meant that Withering replaced Linnæus’s sexual terms with ones that were more modest; for example, he substituted “chive” for “stamen” and “pointal” for “pistil.” Yet, we can imagine the limitations of this bowdlerization, given that Linnæus’s entire taxonomy was based on the sex lives of plants! Darwin immediately recognized these shortcomings and resolved, along with the other two members of the Lichfield Botanical Society, to produce a “literal and accurate” translation of Linnæus, stamens and pistils intact.

Despite their differences, Withering and Darwin both translated botany into the common vernacular, making a science that had only been available previously to scholars trained in Latin now accessible to a wider public, including women. Indeed, a decade before The Botanic Garden was published, Darwin remarks in a letter that he intends the work to induce women to study botany.

His efforts, in addition to authors like Withering, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and others did encourage the increased study of botany by women as well as the production of botanical texts by female authors. Many of these works followed in the style of Darwin, most notably Francis Arabella Rowden’s A Poetical Introduction to the Study of Botany (1801), by combining verse with explanatory scientific footnotes. However, these female authors did not have the freedom to be as candid about sexuality as Darwin had been, for to be taken seriously as botanical writers they had to maintain the modesty then thought to be appropriate for a woman. This modesty manifested itself in the fact that women writers would not often publicly claim authorship for their works, letting “By a Lady” stand in for their names, as in Maria Jacson’s Botanical Dialogues (1797). Modesty also meant foregoing Latin terms in favor of common ones, since displaying the former in public would be thought indecent for a woman. Finally, many female botanical authors relied on the income produced from their works, an income that would be put into jeopardy if they diverged too much from acceptable means of discourse. This was particularly true of the early botanical illustrator, Elizabeth Blackwell (whose illustrations are featured on several pages of this exhibition). Her husband embarked on an unwise business venture that quickly landed him in debtor’s prison. His incarceration and the lack of income because of it caused Elizabeth and her family to fall further into debt. She responded with the only skill available to her: drawing. Realizing the need for a new illustrated herbal, she took on the job of three artisans—sketcher, engraver, and painter—and produced a highly-acclaimed, successful work.

The relationship between botany and women during this period is a complicated one. While botany offered women opportunities to increase their education and pursue livelihoods, some authors used it to maintain and bolster gender norms, advancing restrictive ideals of modesty, delicacy, or frivolity when it came to women studying plants. Darwin’s own views on love and sex, expressed via the marriages of plants throughout his poem, reflect the tension between these poles. Although his Botanic Garden certainly perpetuated traditional eighteenth-century gender norms, it also galvanized a cadre of women to pursue botany more intensely than ever before, producing, in turn, a remarkable art and science of the vegetable world.

Pheasant’s-Eye by James Sowerby (1795—96)
Adonis by Sowerby

—from J. E. Smith’s English Botany

Rev. Richard Polwhele’s
The Unsex’d Females; A poem  (1800)

With bliss botanic1 as their bosoms heave,
Still pluck forbidden fruit, with mother Eve,
For puberty in sighing florets pant,
Or point the prostitution of a plant;
Dissect2 its organ of unhallow’d lust,
And fondly gaze the titillating3 dust;4
With liberty’s sublimer views expand,5
And o’er the wreck of kingdoms6 sternly stand;
And, frantic, midst the democratic storm,
Pursue, Philosophy! thy fantom-form.7

1 Botany has lately become a fashionable amusement with the ladies. But how the study of the sexual system of plants can accord with female modesty, I am not able to comprehend. See not from Darwin’s Botanic Garden, at p.
I had, at first, written;
More eager for illicit knowledge, pant,
With lustful boys anatomize a plant;
The virtues of its dust prolific speak,
Or point its pistil with unblushing cheek.
I have, several times, seen boys and girls botanizing together.

2 Miss Wollstonecraft does not blush to say, in an introduction to a book designed for the use of young ladies, that, “in order to lay the axe at the root of corruption, it would be proper to familiarize the sexes to an unreserved discussion of those topics, which are generally avoided in conversation from a principle of false delicacy; and that it would be right to speak of the organs of generation as freely as we mention our eyes or our hands.” To such language our botanizing girls are doubtless familiarized: and, they are in a fair way of becoming worthy disciples of Miss W. If they do not take heed to their ways, they will soon exchange the blush of modesty for the bronze of impudence.

3 “Each pungent grain of titillating dust.” Pope.

4 “The prolific dust”—of the botanist.

5 Non vultus, non color unus,
Non comptae mansere comae: sed pectus anhelum,
Et rabie fera corda tament; majorque videri, &c.
Except the non color unus, Virgil’s Sibyll seems to be an exact portrait of a female fashionist, both in dress and philosophism.

6 The female advocates of Democracy in this country, though they have had no opportunity of imitating the French ladies, in their atrocious acts of cruelty; have yet assumed a stern serenity in the contemplation of those savage excesses. “To express their abhorrence of royalty, they (the French ladies) threw away the character of their sex, and bit the amputated limbs of their murdered countrymen.—I say this on the authority of a young gentleman who saw it.—I am sorry to add, that the relation, accompanied with looks of horror and disgust, only provoked a contemptuous smile from an illuminated British fair-one.” See Robinson—p. 251.

7 Philosophism, the false image of philosophy.... A true description of philosophy which heretofore appeared not in open day, though it now attempts the loftiest flights in the face of the sun. I trust, however, to English eyes, it is almost lost in the “black cloud” to which it owed its birth.

pp. 8ff

William Withering’s
A Botanical Arrangement of All the Vegetables Naturally Growing in Great Britain  (1776)

From an apprehension that Botany in an English dress would become a favorite amusement with the Ladies; many of whom are very considerable proficients in the study, in spite of every difficulty; it was thought proper to drop the sexual distinctions in the titles to the Classes and Orders, and to adhere only to those of Number, Situation, &c.

(p. v)

A Botanical Society, at Lichfield’s
A System of Vegetables  (1782)

Dr. Withering has given a Flora Anglica under the title of Botanical Arrangements, and in this has translated parts of the Genera and Species Plantarum of Linnæus; but has entirely omitted the sexual distinctions, which are essential to the philosophy of the system; and has introduced a number of english generic names, which either bear no analogy to those of Linnæus, or are derived from such as he has rejected, or has applied to other genera; and has thus rendered many parts of his work unintelligible to the latin Botanist; equally difficult to the english scholar; and loaded the science with an addition of new words.

We propose to give a literal and accurate translation of the SYSTEMA VEGETABILIUM of LINNAEUS, which unfolds and describes the whole of his ingenious and elaborate system of vegetation.

(p. ii)

Adonis annua  (1776)
Adonis Annua Autumnulis (Polyandria Polygynia), from an album (Vol.I, 5); Pheasant's Eye. 1776 Collage of coloured papers, with bodycolour and watercolour, on black ink background

—by Mary Delany
The British Museum

Priscilla Wakefield’s
An Introduction to Botany, In a Series of Familiar Letters  (3rd American ed., 1818)

Dear Sister, Shrubbery, February 1.

As it is an unusual thing for us to be separated, I do not doubt but we equally feel the pain of being at a distance from each other.... My fondness for flowers has induced my mother to propose Botany, as she thinks it will be beneficial to my health, as well as agreeable, by exciting me to use more air and exercise than I should do, without such a motive; because books should not be depended upon alone, recourse must be had to the natural specimens growing in fields and gardens. How should I enjoy this pursuit in your company, my dear sister! but as that is impossible at present, I will adopt the nearest substitute I can obtain, by communicating to you the result of every lesson.... Farewell.

FELICIA.

(pp. 1)

Love, Sex, and Botany

The Adonis annua (sometimes identified in the eighteenth century as A. autumnalis or A. aestivalis) is the final species in Darwin’s The Botanic Garden (1791). It stands in sharp contrast to Canna indica, the species that begins “The Loves of the Plants,” the poem’s second half. Whereas C. indica is a monogamous plant, possessing one stamen and one pistil, A. annua is of the polyandrous class and polygynous order, that is, it possesses many stamens and many pistils. Hence, the “virtuous” monogamy that began the poem is now supplanted by a “licentious Hymen,” the god of marriage who joins this flower in polygamous marriage.

Unlike Darwin’s other depictions of marriage, this passage steps out of the exclusively vegetable world and into the human one by reference to the recent expedition of Captain James Cook. Accompanied by the prominent botanist, Joseph Banks, and student of Linnæus, Daniel Solander, they voyaged to the island of Otaheite. At least, that was how Europeans (and Darwin in his passage) referred to the island in the eighteenth century until a later voyage by Cook, during which linguistic analysis yielded the realization that “O” denotes a definite article, meaning that “Otaheite” was really “Taheite,” or “Tahiti.” The intentions of Cook’s first expedition to Tahiti with Banks and Solander in 1769 were manifold; however, the purpose which instigated it was the opportunity to measure the transit of Venus, which would be visible from the island and explains Darwin’s reference to the planet in the poem. Measuring the transit of Venus would enable a better calculation of the Sun’s distance from the Earth, and, in turn, help to establish the size of the solar system more accurately. Indeed, Darwin invokes this scientific investigation in order to juxtapose the immutability of nature’s laws with the relativity of cultural norms, especially those regarding love and sex.

He broaches this cultural relativity by referring to the sexual practices of the Areoi, the nobility of the island. They lived in sexual freedom or, in Darwin’s words, in one “promiscuous marriage,” thus reflecting the same polygamous condition of A. annua. Darwin never visited Tahiti himself and thus relied on the travelogues of others (like John Hawkesworth’s account, excerpted below) for his information. As one might imagine, these accounts often revealed as much about eighteenth-century English society as it did about Polynesian society.

Darwin’s portrayal of the Areoi is complex. While he does not fail to characterize the marriage as “promiscuous,” “licentious,” and “meretricious,” which, in addition to his representation of the women in his poem more generally as either femme fatales or virtuous ladies, evidences an eighteenth-century normative view of love and sex, Darwin also seems to celebrate the Areoi society, recognizing the arbitrariness of English or any such norms. Linnæus’s sexual system had not only disclosed the sex lives of plants, but also the possibilities open to humans, even if Linnæus’s social conservatism never intended such possibilities to be considered as real. Yet, in Darwin’s final stanza, he transgressed the boundary between the plant and animal kingdom and thus showed the reality of these possibilities for humans. He seized on the libertinism latent within Linnæus’s sexual system.

At the same time, Darwin’s acknowledgment of these new sexual possibilities as real was by no means a univocal support and promotion of them. His tension between championing these new approaches to sex and love and repairing to the socio-cultural ideal of sexual modesty, especially as it applied to women, represents a perduring aspect of the larger strained relationship between women and botany in the eighteenth century.

Linnæus’s taxonomy unabashedly focused on the sex lives of plants and thus immediately invited scrutiny. Consequently, even before the question could be asked whether this system of botany was a proper activity for women, a whole slew of critics showed up to denounce Linnæus’s whole enterprise, with some denying the sexuality of plants outright. (It must be kept in mind that plant sexuality was still a quite recent discovery at that time.) The editor of the Encyclopedia Britannica  (1773), William Smellie, provides a particularly vehement criticism along these lines: “A man would not naturally expect to meet with disgusting strokes of obscenity in a system of botany. But it is a certain fact, that obscenity is the very basis of the Linnæan system. The names of his classes, orders, &c. convey often the vilest and most unnatural ideas” (p. 653).

Darwin was himself party to an acrid dispute concerning the “obscenity” of Linnæus’s system. The other party, William Withering, was one of the first to translate Linnæus’s system into English. His translation, however, achieved more than just finding English equivalents to Linnæus’s Latin, for Withering aimed to present it in an “English dress,” that is, to make it appropriate for women. This meant that Withering replaced Linnæus’s sexual terms with ones that were more modest; for example, he substituted “chive” for “stamen” and “pointal” for “pistil.” Yet, we can imagine the limitations of this bowdlerization, given that Linnæus’s entire taxonomy was based on the sex lives of plants! Darwin immediately recognized these shortcomings and resolved, along with the other two members of the Lichfield Botanical Society, to produce a “literal and accurate” translation of Linnæus, stamens and pistils intact.

Despite their differences, Withering and Darwin both translated botany into the common vernacular, making a science that had only been available previously to scholars trained in Latin now accessible to a wider public, including women. Indeed, a decade before The Botanic Garden was published, Darwin remarks in a letter that he intends the work to induce women to study botany.

His efforts, in addition to authors like Withering, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and others did encourage the increased study of botany by women as well as the production of botanical texts by female authors. Many of these works followed in the style of Darwin, most notably Francis Arabella Rowden’s A Poetical Introduction to the Study of Botany (1801), by combining verse with explanatory scientific footnotes. However, these female authors did not have the freedom to be as candid about sexuality as Darwin had been, for to be taken seriously as botanical writers they had to maintain the modesty then thought to be appropriate for a woman. This modesty manifested itself in the fact that women writers would not often publicly claim authorship for their works, letting “By a Lady” stand in for their names, as in Maria Jacson’s Botanical Dialogues (1797). Modesty also meant foregoing Latin terms in favor of common ones, since displaying the former in public would be thought indecent for a woman. Finally, many female botanical authors relied on the income produced from their works, an income that would be put into jeopardy if they diverged too much from acceptable means of discourse. This was particularly true of the early botanical illustrator, Elizabeth Blackwell (whose illustrations are featured on several pages of this exhibition). Her husband embarked on an unwise business venture that quickly landed him in debtor’s prison. His incarceration and the lack of income because of it caused Elizabeth and her family to fall further into debt. She responded with the only skill available to her: drawing. Realizing the need for a new illustrated herbal, she took on the job of three artisans—sketcher, engraver, and painter—and produced a highly-acclaimed, successful work.

The relationship between botany and women during this period is a complicated one. While botany offered women opportunities to increase their education and pursue livelihoods, some authors used it to maintain and bolster gender norms, advancing restrictive ideals of modesty, delicacy, or frivolity when it came to women studying plants. Darwin’s own views on love and sex, expressed via the marriages of plants throughout his poem, reflect the tension between these poles. Although his Botanic Garden certainly perpetuated traditional eighteenth-century gender norms, it also galvanized a cadre of women to pursue botany more intensely than ever before, producing, in turn, a remarkable art and science of the vegetable world.

Erasmus Darwin,
A Plan for the Conduct of Female Education  (1798)

An outline of Botany may be learnt from Lee’s introduction to botany, and from translation of the works of Linnæus by a society at Lichfield; to which might be added Curtis’s botanical magazine, which is a beautiful work, and of no great expense. But there is a new treatise introductory to botany called Botanic dialogues for the use of schools, well adapted to this purpose, written by M. E. Jacson, a lady well skilled in botany, and published by Johnson, London. And lastly I shall not forbear to mention, that the philosophical part of botany may be agreeably learnt from the notes to the second volume of the Botanic garden, whether the poetry be read or not.

(pp. 54—5)

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Taxonomy

Linnæan Classification

Class: 13. Polyandria (Many Males)
Order: 12. Polygynia (Many Females)
Genus: Adonis
Species: Adonis annua

Modern Classification

Class: Equisetopsida C. Agardh
Sub-
class:
Magnoliidae Novák ex Takht.
Super-
order:
Ranunculanae Takht.
ex Reveal
Order: Ranunculales Juss.
ex Bercht. & J. Presl
Family: Ranunculaceae Juss.
Genus: Adonis L.
Species: Adonis annua L.
Seventeen Hundred and Seventeen-Seven: or, A Picture of the Manners and Character of the Age
From a Lady of Quality in England [William Preston] (1777)

     Hark to my call, ye souls of noble fires!
Whom birth emboldens, and whom taste inspires.
Bee-like, my muse pursues her devious way,
To glean instructions for the fair and gay.
Omiah’s isle her best regards employs,
Its leagues of love, and commonwealth of joys (h).
Illustrious train! whose vast invention shames
The noblest licence of our modish dames;350
Hail, happy few! whom clearer views refine,
Exalted spirits, touch’d with ray divine.
The courtly fair, and high-born striplings rove,
In blest alliance of promiscuous love;
They shun the curse domestic druges bear,
And taste the social bliss without a fear.
The couch of joy from vile restraint is free’d,
The little tell-tales of its pleasures bleed.
No maid is toasted in Omiah's land,
Nor youth in fashion, till he joins their band.360
They the ton, o’er etiquette preside,
Direct amusements, and opinions guide,
Hear their bon-mots retail’d from town to town,
And teach the public when to smile or frown.
’Tis theirs alone with dignity to range,
Where female honor is eternal change;
The various paths of pleasure, and of fame,
Disjoin’d for others, are for them the same.


(h) Vide in Hawkesworth’s Voyages an account of a most extraordinary association.

(p. 7)

Adonis annua  (1776)
Adonis Annua Autumnulis (Polyandria Polygynia), from an album (Vol.I, 5); Pheasant's Eye. 1776 Collage of coloured papers, with bodycolour and watercolour, on black ink background

—by Mary Delany
The British Museum

Priscilla Wakefield’s
An Introduction to Botany, In a Series of Familiar Letters  (3rd American ed., 1818)

Dear Sister, Shrubbery, February 1.

As it is an unusual thing for us to be separated, I do not doubt but we equally feel the pain of being at a distance from each other.... My fondness for flowers has induced my mother to propose Botany, as she thinks it will be beneficial to my health, as well as agreeable, by exciting me to use more air and exercise than I should do, without such a motive; because books should not be depended upon alone, recourse must be had to the natural specimens growing in fields and gardens. How should I enjoy this pursuit in your company, my dear sister! but as that is impossible at present, I will adopt the nearest substitute I can obtain, by communicating to you the result of every lesson.... Farewell.

FELICIA.

(pp. 1)

Elizabeth Moody’s Poetic Trifles  (1798)

TO DR. DARWIN, ON READING HIS LOVES OF THE PLANTS.

No Bard e’er gave his tuneful powers,
Thus to traduce the fame of flowers;
Till Darwin sung his gossip tales,
Of females woo’d by twenty males.
Of Plants so given to amorous pleasure;
Incontinent beyond all measure.
He sings that in botanic schools,
Husbands* adopt licentious rules;
Plurality of Wives they wed,
And all they like—they take to bed.
That Lovers sign with secret love,
And marriage rites clandestine, prove.
That, fann’d in groves their mutual fire,
They to some Gretna Green retire.

*See classes of Flowers, Polygamy, Clandestine Marriage, &c.

(p. 8)

Adonis annua  (1842)
Adonis Annua by Jane Loudon

—from by Jane Loudon’s The Ladies Flower-Garden

John Hawkesworth,
An Account of the Voyage  (3rd ed., 1785)

A very considerable number of the principal people of Otaheite, of both sexes, have formed themselves into a society, in which every woman is common to every man; thus securing a perpetual variety as often as their inclination prompts them to seek it, which is so frequent, that the same man and woman seldom cohabit together more than two or three days.

These societies are distinguished by the name of Arreoy; and the members have meetings, at which no other is present, where the men amuse themselves by wrestling, and the women, notwithstanding their occasional connection with different men, dance the Timorodee in all its latitude, as an incitement to desires which it is said are frequently gratified upon the spot. This, however, is comparatively nothing. If any of the women happen to be with child, which in this manner of life happens less frequently than if they were to cohabit only with one man, the poor infant is smothered the moment it is born, that it may be no encumbrance to the father, nor interrupt the mother in the pleasures of her diabolical prostitution.

(p. 49)

Continue the Exhibition

Next Species:

Indian Reed (Canna indica)

See it in the LuEsther Mertz Library
  • J. H. Kniphof, Botanica in originali (1764)
  • C. Linnæus, Species plantarum (1753)
  • W. Withering, A Botanical Arrangement (1776)
  • P. Bulliard, Flora Parisiensis (1783)
  • C. Linnæus, A System of Vegetables (1783)
  • E. Darwin, The Botanic Garden (1791)
  • E. Darwin, A Plan For the Conduct of Female Education (1797)
  • W. Curtis, Flora Londinensis (1798)
  • J. Sowerby, English Botany (1814)
  • F. A. Rowden, A Poetical Introduction to the Study of Botany (1818)
  • P. Wakefield, An Introduction to Botany (1818)
  • F. Vietz, Icones plantarum (1822)
  • J. Loudon, Ladies’ Flower-Garden (1849)