Explore the rare books of the Daniel Solander Library

Come join us for a relaxed and engaging International Book Day tour. It's all about how people have tried to understand and illustrate plants across different cultures and through many centuries. Using a selection of fascinating books from the Daniel Solander Library, including works from all around the world and across time, we’ll take a journey from ancient ideas right through to modern science.

We’ll start with the old stories: myths, legends, and early attempts to explain the natural world through things like astrology and alchemy. From there, we’ll look at how these ideas gradually shifted as botany, medicine, and chemistry developed into real scientific disciplines.

Along the way, we’ll also explore the changing ways people chose to show plants. Think everything from early freehand drawings to woodcuts, engravings, lithographs, chromolithographs, and the modern illustration techniques we use today. Different cultures and eras brought their own style and understanding, and it all adds to the rich story of how individuals connected with the plant world. It’s all linked, how we understood plants shaped how we drew them, and how we drew them shaped what we learned. And thanks to the incredible global range of books in our collection, we get to watch that story unfold right on the page.

Come celebrate books, knowledge, and the wonderful ways people everywhere have tried to make sense of the plant world!