The hidden stories of the Linnean herbarium

In a dark, climate-controlled basement room in London, some 14,000 dried plants are stored. This is the eighteenth-century herbarium of Carl Linnaeus himself, meticulously catalogued in faded folders tied with brown cotton ribbon. The plants were collected by botanists across the globe in an effort to map the world s flora. Some have been hastily taped to the sheet, others carefully mounted and described in elegant handwriting. Some of the plants are spoils of war or trade goods, and many people sacrificed their lives to contribute to this collection. What can the Linnaean Herbarium tell us about eighteenth-century relationships to the natural world? And what stories are hiding among these pages?   

In this book, photographer Lena Granefelt literally illuminates herbarium sheets from two of the most significant Linnaean collections in the world, one held by the Linnean Society of London and the other by the Swedish Museum of Natural History. In the light from Granefelt s flash invisible details emerge: the structure of the paper, watermarks, and notes that bring together the thoughts and observations of botanists from many different eras. Colours also re-emerge, folds and enclosed seeds become visible.

This photographic documentation is accompanied by the words of Sverker Sörlin, historian of ideas, professor of environmental history and award-winning author, who examines the practicalities of plant collecting and reveals the contribution of herbaria to a revolution in knowledge about our world.