I’m too busy to be writing this blog post. (Read: I just moved and am still working out daycare and unpacking and have lots of unexpected work to do!) But I’ve really fallen off the radar, and wanted to prove that I’m still here and working and thinking and wanting to share with you, my loyal readers! So, having just stumbled across something online that brightened my (somewhat cloudy) day, I wanted to share with you.

From the Biodiversity Heritage Library’s Facebook Page:
“Elizabeth Twining (1805–1889) of Twinings Tea UK was a botanical illustrator. Inspired by Curtis’s “The Botanical Magazine” and the Royal Horticultural Society at Chiswick gardens, Elizabeth began drawing plants and flowers, and she wrote and illustrated several botanical works. Her most famous is the two-volume “Illustrations of the Natural Order of Plants” (1849-55), which was originally produced as a royal folio with 160 hand-coloured lithographs and was followed by an 1868 quarto edition: http://ow.ly/RchzJ

“Illustrations of the Natural Order of Plants” (1868) was digitized for BHL by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Main Library. See the illustrations in Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/…/biodivlib…/albums/72157627468867818″

Check it out. These are some truly lovely illustrations. They are a much-needed tonic to my day and I hope you enjoy them too.

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(Don’t abandon me quite yet. I plan to be back in blogging form before too long!)