Old books and plant porn.

I spent a lot of time in graduate school digging through the depths of the internet and library archives for species descriptions of members of the monocotolydenous plant family Commelinaceae. I focused on several genera in this family as a part of my dissertation work, so I aimed to become an expert in taxonomy. I stumbled across a few articles of note in Curtis' Botanical Magazine, so I ordered the relevant issues from the library's book depository.

The day I went to the library to look at said books, I was surprised with a different protocol than with previous books I'd studied. My normal procedure was to look through the books for my articles, decide whether it was useful, and head to the print center to make copies. This time, though, I had to be escorted to the print center and supervised while I made copies. I understood the level of protection afforded this journal once I opened the books--each volume included descriptions of plant species along with beautiful, full color drawings. Quite amusing to me were the drawings which appeared on glossy, fold-out pages like pin-up models. Veritable plant porn!

I recently learned several volumes of Curtis' Botanical Magazine are now available on Project Gutenberg. I'm pleased to see these works being electronically archived and easy to access. I've included here the illustration for one of my study organisms, Tradescantia virginiana, from Volume 3.