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Home » Physical Environment/Landscape » Natural history » Botany

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  • This is a small watercolour painting of William Williams (1805-61) or 'Will Boots' as he was known locally. Will Boots was born in Ruthin in 1805 but came to Llanberis in the mid-nineteenth century where he became one of the most famous of all the Snowdon mountain guides. It was said that he occasionally ascended the summit on foot three times in one day, while the visitors travelled on ponies. In addition to providing the normal services associated with guiding visitors on the mountain, he was a keen botanist and collector of rare plants, notably ferns. It was during one of his walks in search of alpine ferns that he met his death in 1861 after falling on the mountain. Source: Dewi Jones, 'The Botanists and Guides of Snowdonia' (Llanrwst, 1996)
Watercolour painting of 'Will Boots' (1805-61) - one of the early mountain guides of Snowdon
  • During the late-nineteenth century Edith E. H. Massey (1863-1946) and her sister Gwendolen (1864-1960) were prominent members of the Anglesey Hunt. Edith served as Lady Patroness of the Anglesey Hunt in 1882. Apart from hunting, the Massey sisters also had a great love of drawing and produced numerous botanical illustrations of the wild flowers and plants of Anglesey.
Edith E. H. Massey, Cornelyn, Beaumaris, c. 1880s
  • During the late-nineteenth century Gwendolen Massey (1864-1960) and her sister Edith (1863-1946) were prominent members of the Anglesey Hunt. Gwendolen served as Lady Patroness of the Anglesey Hunt in 1888. Apart from hunting, the Massey sisters also had a great love of drawing and produced numerous botanical illustrations of the wild flowers and plants of Anglesey.
Gwendolen Massey, Cornelyn, Beaumaris, c. 1880s
  • John Gerard (1545-1612), a barber surgeon living in Holborn, was one of Britain's earliest botanists. His catalogue of his own garden in 1596 was the first thorough treatment of a single garden to be produced, and his herbal was first published in 1597.
Extracts from 'The herball or generall historie of plantes', by John Gerard, 1633, title page [image 1 of 16]
  • The 'Temple of Flora' is the most famed and extravagant of all English botanical plate books, taking the form of exotic and romantic settings for the chosen plants, with prose and verse text. The colour-printed plates are a combination of aquatint, mezzotint and other engraving processes. This copy came to Wales in 1844 when it was donated to St David's College, Lampeter, by Thomas Phillips (1760-1851). In all, Thomas Phillips donated some 22,500 books to Lampeter, which, when added to the collections given and bequeathed by Bishop Burgess and the Bowdler family, made the library of the infant college the largest and most comprehensive in Wales.
'Queen plant' from Robert Thornton's 'Temple of Flora, or Garden of Nature' (1799-1807) [image 1 of 7]
  • The full title of this work by Edward Lhuyd is as follows: 'Archaeologia Britannica: giving some account....of the languages, histories and customs the original habitants of Great Britain from collections and observations in travels through Wales, Cornwal, Bas-Bretagne, Ireland and Scotland by Edward Lhuyd M.A. of Jesus College, Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. Vol. 1: Glossography. Oxford, 1707.' This was to have been the first volume of a projected multi-volume work, but no further volumes appeared due to the author's untimely death in 1709. The book comprises separate sections, all dealing with aspects of the Celtic languages: it is regarded as the first significant work on comparative Celtic philology. Lhuyd's methodology of observing regular correspondences between languages set a model for the philologists of the nineteenth century. Edward Lhuyd (1660?-1709) hailed from the Oswestry area. He was a polymath and is especially revered as a botanist and collector of shells and fossils. He began studying law at Jesus College, Oxford, but soon became engrossed in the experimental scientific work being undertaken at the Ashmolean Museum. He was appointed one of its deputy-directors in 1687 and Director in 1691. He received an honorary MA degree from Oxford in 1707 and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1708.
'Archaeologia Britannica' by Edward Lhuyd (Oxford, 1707) [front cover]