The Pressed Plant
GRASS, FLOWER, SEAWEED, LEAF-every plant is a perfect form.  When pressed to paper, its perfection is dramatically captured and revealed-as a work of nature, but with a kinship to art."The Pressed Plant" is the fist book to demonstrate this aesthetic phenomenon through hundreds of stunning illustrations that date from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, most of which have never before been published.Part one, The Plant Collected, shows real plants of astonishing beauty that have been collected, pressed, and mounted by botanists or by amateurs, as single sheets or bound into books called herbaria.  The anecdotal text relates the intriguing and romantic story of plant collections as a hazardous natural science in uncharted territories, as a genteel Victorian pastime, and as the serious pursuit of a remarkable group of nineteenth-century women botanists.Part Two, The Plant's Impression, shows and describes rare and classic examples of both nature prints, in which the plant is inked, pressed, and printed, and sun pictures, produced when a plant is placed on light-sensitive paper and exposed to the sun.  An Afterward looks at how botanical materials are used in unusual works by leading contemporary artists, while detailed appendices describe methods of botanical specimen collecting and mounting, materials and suppliers, and botanical institutions and museums worldwide."The Pressed Plant" presents a fascinating view of the natural world, beautifully preserved.