Twenty Women Botanists: A Hidden History of Plant Pioneers

Publication: 20 May 2027

Born in the 18th and 19th centuries, the courageous women featured in this book travelled, recorded, studied and analysed plants to bring us new species and expand our knowledge of the natural world.

From the discovery of flamboyant bougainvillea to the secretive lives of seaweeds, women have introduced many botanical wonders to the world. Yet too often their names and vital contributions have been  undervalued, forgotten or unrecorded. Until now.

This book tells the stories of remarkable women who led remarkable lives, including the first woman to circumnavigate the globe, a Scot who found botanical jewels in the Arctic, an American behind the foundation of the New York Botanical Garden, an intrepid South African and a young woman who died before she was thirty but is now hailed as
‘Ireland’s first woman botanist’. While some ventured dauntlessly overseas, others made groundbreaking discoveries at home, through painstaking observation. Still others inspired the next generation or captured rare plants in exquisite art. Although they had neither limitless wealth nor the advantages of equal education, it is on the shoulders of
these pioneers that today’s botanists, ecologists and conservationists stand. Their stories are a revelation.

CAROLINE BALL is an author and editor who has written on subjects from horticulture and travel to antiques and health. Her Heritage Apples (Bodleian Library Publishing, 2019) won the Garden Media Guild’s Peter Seabrook Practical Book of the Year.

• Hardback
• ISBN: 9781851246632
• Extent: 288 pages
• Size: 234 x 156 mm
• Illustrations: 6 Halftones, black & white; 35 Plates, colour

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