Pressed flower or leaf· 1620s
A plantain leaf pressed beside its own picture since 1626
By the Editors · As reported by Bodleian Libraries blog, 22 June 2010
FoundOxford, United Kingdom
Tucked inside an early herbal in the Bodleian foundation collection
Researcher Robyn Adams was working through one of the first books given to Oxford’s Bodleian Library, an early herbal, when she found a pressed plantain leaf on the very page that illustrates the plant. A note said it came from a Mr Crowe’s garden in Dublin in 1626. A seventeenth-century reader had evidently placed it there to check the identification. The Bodleian’s conservators sealed the leaf in inert plastic and returned it to the same page.
This is our summary of a find reported in the press. For the full story, photographs and any updates, read the original report in Bodleian Libraries blog.