Plants

We’ve gathered a bouquet for you of flower illustrations in the Folger collection, ranging from watercolor paintings to hand-colored copperplate engravings. Enjoy these five blooms in celebration of spring.

Explore turmeric, cinnamon, mint, and sugar to learn more about plants as food, and what they reveal about the early modern age and today.

The text for this blog post is adapted from an article in the Summer 2009 issue of Folger Magazine. Shakespeare, who grew up in a riverside country town and was the grandchild of prosperous farmers, refers with familiarity to an extraordinary number of plants…