James Sowerby by Paul Henderson

James Sowerby by Paul Henderson

As Heard on The Daily Gardener Podcast: (opens in new tab) James Sowerby by Paul Henderson This book came out in 2016, and the subtitle is The Enlightenment’s Natural Historian. In this book, Paul Henderson introduces us to James Sowerby, arguably one of the best botanical illustrators of the mid-18th to mid-19th centuries. One of the…

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Phoebe Lankester: The Widowed Botanist Who Made Wildflowers Worth Notice

Phoebe Lankester (1825-1900), a prominent British botanist and popular science writer.

Penelope the British Botanist April 9, 1900 Today is the anniversary of the death of the British botanist, author, pragmatist, and survivor, Phoebe Lankester. Phoebe’s birthday is tomorrow. Born in 1825 as Phoebe Pope, she married the naturalist Edwin Lankester- who was a coroner and medical reformer. Together, they had eleven children. When Phoebe was 49,…

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William Curtis and the Legacy of Curtis’s Botanical Magazine

William Curtis thumbnail image

Pudding and Praise Today is the anniversary of the death of the botanist and entomologist William Curtis, the creator, and publisher of the influential Curtis Botanical Magazine. William founded the magazine in 1787.  Curtis Botanical Magazine made him wealthy, and he often remarked that it had brought him “pudding and praise”. William had started out…

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Gardens of Words: How Phebe Lankester Cultivated Knowledge for the Masses

Herman G. Herkomer Portrait of Mrs Phoebe Lankester c. 1895.

This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast: Click here to see the complete show notes for this episode. June 9, 1900 On this day, British botanist and author Phebe Lankester departed this mortal coil, though one imagines she did so with the same practical determination with which she lived her extraordinary…

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April 9, 2019 Phebe Lankester, James Sowerby, Joseph Trimble Rothrock, Asa Gray, Louis Agassiz, Gardeners Question Time, Charles Baudelaire, Katie Daisy, the Toronto Archives, and Joseph Sauriol

The Daily Gardener Podcast Album Cover with a pot of rosemary - the herb for remembrance - beckoning gardeners to remember to listen to the show. Updated September 2025.

(opens in new tab) Subscribe Apple | Google | Spotify | Stitcher | iHeart Support The Daily Gardener Buy Me A Coffee  Connect for FREE! The Friday Newsletter |  Daily Gardener Community Monologue Today’s thought is precisely that: How we think when we garden. Emerson wrote: Blame me not, laborious band, For the idle flowers…

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