On February 17, 2011, I gave a show-&-tell of some rare botanical books from the Museum's Rare Book Collection at a joint program of the Native Plant Society and NOBS (Northern Ohio Bibliophilic Society). The event was held at Loganberry Books and attracted an enthusiastic crowd of plant lovers and book collectors. I showed one volume of Hough's American Woods, and the audience was fascinated by the illustrations, which are actual specimens of wood that have been sliced so thin you can see light through them. You can read more about this set and see some of the illustrations here.
I also showed the two-volume set of Mushrooms in Their Natural Habitats, by Alexander H. Smith. Volume 2, which contains the illustrations, offers a wonderful surprise. Go here and scroll down to see the surprise!
In addition to the above books, I also showed and talked about Wild Flowers from the Holy Land, by Harvey B. Greene, which contains pressed flowers that are amazingly intact for a book published in 1895! I lugged one volume of Sander's Reichenbachia, which has glorious life-size chromolithographs of orchids. It was worth the muscle strain just to be able to show everyone these truly magnificent illustrations.
The event was a lot of fun, and I appreciated the opportunity to share some of the Museum's treasures. You can read more about the program, including information on the portion presented by the Cleveland Botanical Garden's librarian Gary Esmonde, on the Loganberry blog.