Flora and Fauna Illustrata
A long-term project to document the plant and animal species living at the MN Landscape Arboretum through scientifically-accurate fine art
This digital exhibit introduces viewers to the history of the joint Minnesota Landscape Arboretum (MLA) - Andersen Horticultural Library (AHL) Flora and Fauna Illustrata (FFI) project and collection. Thirty works from the collection are showcased, each geotagged on a map where the specimens were found on the MLA grounds. The exhibit also highlights some examples of FFI artists' process boards and other materials, and discusses some ways in which AHL has used the FFI collection for outreach and educational purposes so far. We hope this digital exhibit will demonstrate the collection's importance as a regional and national visual resource for scientists, artists, and nature-lovers alike.
The MLA and AHL would like to sincerely thank the artists who have generously donated their time and extraordinary talent in creating these beautiful works of art, making the FFI collection and this digital exhibit possible. We are forever grateful for your beautiful art, time, and energy, and hope this exhibit will help share your art with more viewers.
Andersen Horticultural Library
Located in the Snyder Building of the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum (MLA) in Chaska, Minnesota, the Andersen Horticultural Library opened to the public in 1974 as a part of the University of Minnesota Libraries system. Named for the late Minnesota governor Elmer. L Andersen and his wife, Eleanor Andersen, the library preserves and organizes a wealth of knowledge and resources about botany, birds and other animals, horticulture, natural history, foraging, cooking, gardening, herbalism, and much more, for both adults and children. Today, AHL is the largest horticultural research library in the Upper Midwest and is world-renowned for maintaining one of the largest collections of seed and nursery catalogs in the U.S.
Inside AHL, laden with books and George Nakashima furniture. Photo by Chris McNamara, via SWNewsMedia article from 2019.
Follow the links below to learn more about the Arboretum and AHL:
A Brief History of Flora and Fauna Illustrata
Suz's Trees of the Big Woods
One of the newest collections at AHL is Flora and Fauna Illustrata. The idea for this collection began in the summer of 2014 when botanical artist and instructor Suzanne Galloway wrote a letter to then-MLA Director, Dr. Ed Schneider, proposing that she illustrate seven trees of the Big Woods and donate them for public viewing at the MLA.
The Big Woods is a subsection of deciduous forest habitat in south-central eastern Minnesota. On this map, it is the area marked with white and green squiggles. The Minnesota River runs through this subsection, and the Mississippi River forms the northeastern boundary. Prior to European settlement, when only the Mdewakanton and Wahpekute bands of Dakota people stewarded this land, the most common trees were red oak, sugar maple, and American elm. These three trees, plus white oak, American basswood, ironwood, bigtooth aspen, and green ash, were part of Galloway's original proposal. Today, most of the Big Woods habitat has been replaced by farmland and the Twin Cities metro. However, edges of the native Big Woods remain, including in parts of the MLA!
FFI is born
Galloway's letter was ultimately passed on to AHL. After meeting with Librarian Kathy Allen and Judith Spiegel, another botanical artist, teacher, and longtime MLA member and volunteer, the three decided to expand Galloway's idea into a broader, long-term botanical art project. This would allow species from Minnesota's other habitats, including coniferous forests, prairie grasslands, and tallgrass aspen parklands, to be represented in the project, as well as cultivated plants and non-natives growing at the MLA. Renowned artist Wendy Brockman had the idea to include animals and insects in the collection, rather than just plants, to set it apart from other botanical art collections. The founders hoped this project would inspire learning, discovery, and enjoyment, while providing a regional and national visual resource to aid research.
The group created a mission statement: to document the MLA's species through scientifically accurate fine art. Then they convened an advisory board, consisting of 10-15 MLA staff, artists, and scientific experts from the University of Minnesota. This board helped to make decisions about the logistics of the project, and the scientific experts agreed to act as jurors for the scientific accuracy of submitted works.
An evolving project
The FFI collection has grown since its inception into a long-term project to represent all of the plant, animal, and insect species living at the MLA through scientifically accurate fine art. While open to artists across the world, the project focuses on working with local artists who are able to visit the MLA in person and choose a living specimen from the grounds to depict. Artists can choose any species or cultivar that speaks to them, although the FFI leadership has put out specific calls in the past for certain kinds of species or species from certain habitats, such as Trees or Prairie Plants and Animals. Once an artist deems their artwork finished, they submit it to be juried by scientists, naturalists, and artists (the jurors), first for scientific accuracy and then for aesthetic quality and artistic ability. If accepted by this biannual jury process, the piece is donated to the FFI collection to be preserved in AHL's temperature- and humidity-controlled rare book room indefinitely, and to be exhibited periodically both digitally and in-person.
The FFI advisory board also created a "Supplemental" FFI category, for artworks not based on actual plant specimens from the MLA, or for artworks deemed scientifically inaccurate by the FFI jurors, but that are still useful for educational or aesthetic purposes. This small group of images supplemental to the core FFI collection are preserved and exhibited the same as the other FFI works. The existence of this category demonstrates the challenges artists, who are often not scientifically trained in any formal way, face in learning to understand the plant or animal they are illustrating on a more scientific level, while also creating a beautiful piece of art.
FFI today
Currently, the FFI collection consists of more than ninety pieces by over thirty different artists. AHL shows an annual FFI exhibition highlighting different themes within the collection. In July of 2021, for the 4th Annual FFI Exhibition titled Celebrating Trees, FFI coordinator Adrienne Alms added GPS coordinates and QR codes to each label for each piece in the show to indicate the location of the living specimen that each artist worked from. This created a more interactive exhibit and allowed viewers to locate the living plants on the MLA grounds and compare them to the artists' renditions.
Works from the Collection
The following is a selection of accepted FFI works, each geotagged on a map of the MLA grounds, giving the location of the living specimen that each artist worked from. You can click on a specific category or work on the left side to read more about it and jump to its location on the map.
Andersen Horticultural Library's Rare Book Room
This is where the FFI collection is preserved while the works are not on display. The room is temperature- and humidity-controlled, and also houses AHL's large rare book and historical seed catalog collections.
Prairie Plants and Animals
While the Arboretum has a small restored prairie area on the western side of the grounds, just past the Shade Tree Exhibit on Three-Mile Drive, many of the prairie plants and animals in the FFI collection were found living in the Spring Peeper Meadow and prairie area on the far eastern side of the grounds (some locations are approximate). A call was put out to artists for Prairie Plants and Animals in 2019. The following works were either created for this call, or were later added to this call category.
Blazing Star (Liatris spicata) by Wendy Brockman
Watercolor, 2017.
Wild Bee Balm with Bumblebee (Monarda fistulosa with Bombus fervidus) by Susan McDonald
Watercolor, 2016.
Cope's Gray Tree Frog (Hyla chrysoscelis) by Mary Anderson
Watercolor, 2019. Anderson found this frog in the Spring Peeper Meadow, and it is currently the only frog in our FFI collection.
Painted Lady Butterfly (Vanessa cardui) by Marilyn Zieska
Watercolor, 2020.
Hairy Wild Petunia (Ruellia humilis) by Linda Thorson
Graphite and colored pencil, 2021.
Blue Vervain with common Buckeye Butterfly (Verbena hastata with Junonia coenia) by Susan Strong McDonald
Watercolor, 2016.
Trees
Of all the types of plants and animals at the MLA, trees are probably the best represented in the FFI collection. These are also the easiest works for which to identify the exact locations of the living specimens; trees are big and it's often easy to tell individuals apart from each other. Many trees depicted in these works are from the Shade Tree Exhibit, or from their specific tree family collection, but a few are living in wild woods or other seemingly random places on the MLA grounds.
Sugar Maple (Acer saccharum) by Suzanne Galloway
Graphite, 2017. This is one of the seven trees of the Big Woods that Galloway originally proposed illustrating to Dr. Ed Schneider, and which she is now working on for the FFI collection. The Sugar Maple that Galloway chose to depict is located right past the gates into the MLA on the left side of the road as you enter.
Ohio Buckeye 'Autumn Splendor' (Aesculus 'Autumn Splendor') bud opening, by Louise Magnuson
Watercolor, 2018. The individual Ohio Buckeye cultivar this bud was drawn from lives just east of the parking lot at the Shade Tree Exhibit. These pinkish buds usually open in March or April in Minnesota, revealing beautiful fresh leaves.
Red Pine (Pinus resinosa) by Louise Magnuson
Watercolor, 2019. Our Minnesota state tree, this individual lives in the Pine collection.
Northern Bur Oak (Quercus macrocarpa) by Janet Goltz
Graphite, 2018. This old tree has been struck by lightning multiple times and is starting to die now, but currently still stands on the northwest side of the road just before the hill leading up to the Farm at the Arb. Through the FFI project, trees like this old bur oak are able to be preserved in an artistic but still scientifically accurate way, long after the tree itself has died and returned to the earth. There is something about the finely detailed texture in these graphite works that preserves the essence of the tree better than a photograph ever could.
Amur Cork Tree (Phellodendron amurense) by Connie Scanlon
Watercolor on vellum, 2019. This tree lives in the Shade Tree Exhibit. This work was accepted into the FFI Supplemental category, as it was deemed scientifically inaccurate by the FFI scientific jurors, but it is still an absolutely gorgeous piece of art and useful for educational purposes.
American Elm (Ulmus americana) by Marilyn Garber
Graphite and watercolor, 2018.
Crabapple 'Harvest Gold' (Malus 'Harvest Gold') by Jean Niemiec
Watercolor, 2017. This tree once lived in the Crabapple collection, but has since been removed from the MLA grounds due to disease. This piece is an especially important part of our FFI collection, as it is an example of how the project preserves the beauty and scientific details of plants that are no longer living at the Arboretum.
Maidenhair Tree (Ginkgo biloba) in summer by Katie Searl
Graphite, 2018. This female, or fruit-producing, ginkgo tree lives just north of the Home Demonstration Garden along Three-Mile Drive.
Korean Mountain Ash (Sorbus alnifolia) by Katharine Robinson
Watercolor, 2017. This tree lives in the Mountain Ash Collection, near the end of Three-Mile Drive.
Minnesota Hardy Call and the Horticultural Research Center
Just north of Highway 5 to the west of the main Arboretum grounds is the Horticultural Research Center. Originally founded in 1908 as the University of Minnesota's Fruit-Breeding Farm to develop cold-hardy apple trees, today the HRC continues this cold-hardy fruit tree research, and also breeds cold-hardy landscape plants, ornamental grasses, and conducts restoration ecology research. Many well-known fruit varieties have been developed at the HRC, including the Haralson and Honeycrisp apples, both of which are represented in the FFI collection. In 2018, AHL put out a call for Minnesota Hardy plants; that is, notable plants that are already naturally hardy to our cold, dry winters, or plants that scientists at the HRC have bred to withstand our winters. The following works represent some of the Minnesota Hardy Plants that were submitted for this call or were later added to this call category. Some locations are approximate.
Apple 'Minneiska/SweeTango' (Malus 'Minneiska/SweeTango') by Laurie Lonsdorf
Colored pencil, 2019. This tree lives at the HRC.
Plum 'Superior' (Prunus 'Superior') by Mary Anne O'Malley
Watercolor, 2018. This cold-hardy plum variety was originally developed at what is now the HRC in 1933 by crossing an American plum tree with a Japanese plum tree. This particular specimen lives at the HRC.
Apple 'Honeycrisp' (Malus 'Honeycrisp') by Patti O'Brien
Colored pencil and watercolor, 2018. This cold-hardy apple variety was named the Minnesota state fruit in 2006 and this particular tree lives today at the HRC.
Azalea 'Golden Lights' (Rhododendron 'Golden Lights') by Judith Spiegel
Colored pencil, 2020. This plant is one variety of the 'Lights' series of cold-hardy azaleas developed at the HRC. This particular specimen lives in the Woodland-Azalea Garden.
Wild Red Raspberry (Rubus idaeus) by Kathe Wilcoxon
Watercolor, 2018. This bush, originally planted in 1987, lives near the Rhododendron Garden, and is naturally hardy to our cold and dry Minnesota winters.
Spring
In 2017, AHL put out a call to FFI artists for Spring Plants and Animals. The following are works that were either created for this call, or were later added to this call category. Many of the plants in this category are some of the first plants to emerge or to bloom in the springtime in Minnesota. Many can be found in the Wildflower Garden (some locations are approximate).
Canadian Wild Ginger (Asarum canadense) by Nancy Lizette Berlin
Watercolor, 2019.
Double-Flowered Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis 'Multiplex') by Julie Carley
Graphite, 2018. While this particular flower is a variety cultivated to produce larger, more robust flowers than the native species of bloodroot, it is still one of the earliest wildflowers in Minnesota to emerge from the spring soil. This cultivar lives in the Woodland-Azalea Garden, but there are many wild bloodroot specimens in the Wildflower Garden and throughout the woods on the MLA grounds.
Yellow Lady's Slipper Orchid (Cypripedium parviflorum var. pubescens) by Judith Spiegel
Watercolor, 2016. This plant lives in the Wildflower Garden, and blooms for only a short period in the spring.
Ruby-Throated Hummingbird (Archilochus colubris) Nest by Ronda Dick
Watercolor, 2021. This nest was originally found by Arboretum grounds staff one spring in the Wildflower Garden with two hatchlings in it. After a heavy storm, the hatchlings were gone, and staff removed the branch with the nest from the garden to use for scientific and educational purposes. The nest now lives with Matt Schuth, naturalist, author, and longtime Arboretum volunteer and member, who uses it for teaching purposes, and who was one of the people there in the Wildflower Garden when the nest was initially found. Dick borrowed this nest to create her work from.
Tree Peony 'Guardian of the Monastery' (Paeonia 'Guardian of the Monastery') by Linda Thorson
Graphite and colored pencil, 2021. This is one of our most recently accepted pieces into the FFI collection. This peony usually blooms in May at the MLA.
Siberian Squill (Scilla siberica) by Terry McFarland
Colored pencil, 2017. These flowers are plentiful in early spring throughout the MLA grounds, but this particular plant lived along the path just north of the Home Demonstration Garden.
Other works
Not all of the pieces in the FFI collection neatly fall into one category or call. In fact, most of them don't. The following are some beautiful FFI works that were not submitted for any specific call, but rather the specimens represented seemed to call to the artist instead.
Pileated Woodpecker (Drycopus pileatus) by Karen Rathke
Colored pencil, 2018.
Painted Turtle (Chrysemys picta) by Terry McFarland
Colored pencil, 2019. Although McFarland first saw the specific turtle she drew in the Chinese Garden pond, painted turtles can be found in many of the different ponds throughout the MLA grounds. This is the only turtle in the FFI collection.
Seven Son Flower (Heptacodium miconioides) by Bobbi Angell
Copper etching, 2017.
Artist Process Materials
The artistic process is different for every artist, but most who have participated in the FFI project spend hours of time choosing a specimen to represent, observing and studying that specimen, color-matching, and sketching. Some artists work from photos and some work from actual natural materials, or a combination of the two. Three artists have generously donated process boards and other materials to the FFI collection in addition to their final works of art, allowing us a glimpse into their creative processes, bringing to light some of the usually unseen work that has gone into their pieces, and reminding us that this beautiful art does not come out of nowhere. View process materials from three different renowned botanical artists who have donated their work to the FFI collection, below. You can click on images to enlarge them.
Process materials by Terry McFarland, from her Waterlily (Nymphaea 'Peace Lily'), completed in 2018.
Process materials by Marilyn Garber, from her American Elm (Ulmus americana), completed in 2019.
Process materials by Wendy Brockman, from her many different Oak pieces, generously donated to AHL. While these oaks are not part of the FFI collection, Brockman has other pieces in the FFI collection, and is a long-time FFI artistic juror. Some of these finished oak pieces can be seen in the furthest right photo.
Outreach and Impacts
Since its inception, Flora and Fauna Illustrata has grown considerably. Here are some of the ways in which AHL has worked with the collection for educational and outreach purposes:
In April 2017, long-time MLA naturalist and volunteer Matt Schuth led a group of FFI artists on an Earth Day walk through the Wildflower Garden, to view, learn, and gain inspiration from spring ephemeral wildflowers.
Image of Matt Schuth leading a nature walk at the MLA, courtesy of Susie Hopper via a Star Tribune article from 2017. Image of six different species of common spring ephemeral wildflowers in Minnesota, courtesy of students and staff at the Carleton College Cowling Arboretum in Northfield, MN.
In autumn of 2017, then-FFI coordinator Gretchen Wagener Burau installed the inaugural FFI exhibition in the Skyway Gallery at the MLA, showing works that had been accepted into the collection up to that point. To celebrate the first FFI exhibition, AHL hosted an open house and reception for FFI artists, their friends and families, as well as Friends of AHL and FFI advisory board members. The second FFI exhibition took place in autumn of 2018, and the third in summer of 2019. After a year off due to the COVID-19 pandemic, AHL resumed the annual showings in summer of 2021 with the 4th Annual FFI Exhibition.
From 2017 to 2019, AHL staff organized FFI artist gatherings for artists to paint and draw together on the second Monday of the month. These gatherings allowed artists to develop a community, and to bounce ideas off of one another and get feedback from each other about their art.
Image of Judy Spiegel and FFI artists in AHL, courtesy of FFI artist Julie Carley.
With help from the MLA marketing team, the FFI committee has created three different volumes of coloring books and a variety of different colorable bookmarks from art in the FFI collection, which are quite popular among both children and adults! Physical copies of both the coloring books and the bookmarks are available for free at AHL, and a digital copy of Volume 3 of the coloring book can be found here on the MLA's website:
Images from Volumes 2 and 3 of the FFI coloring books, and three colorable bookmarks rendered from art in the FFI collection.
Former AHL staff member and FFI Coordinator, Brianna Foster wrote an article that was published in The Botanical Artist: Journal of the American Society of Botanical Artists in March 2020 (vol. 26, issue 1) about the FFI project. The Botanical Artist is one of AHL's numerous journal subscriptions, and a physical copy of the issue in which this article appeared, as well as many other issues and journals, can be found at AHL.
The Botanical Artist (vol. 26, issue 1 from March 2020) front cover and the article written by Brianna Foster about the FFI collection.
We hosted multiple walk-throughs of our 4th annual FFI exhibition in summer of 2021 for both current and potential FFI artists, led by botanical artists and founding members of the FFI project, Suz Galloway and Judith Spiegel. These proved to be great opportunities for artists to meet each other, view and learn from each others' works, and ask questions. A brief tour of AHL's resources for artists was led by AHL Librarian Kathy Allen after each exhibit walk-through. We are hoping to host more of these walk-throughs in the future, and potentially open them up to the public, instead of just FFI artists.
Images of participating FFI artists, Suz and Judy, Adrienne, and Kathy attending and guiding a walk-through of the 4th Annual FFI Exhibition in July 2021. The last photo is Kathy showing the artists botanical prints from an old rare book in AHL's collection, during the tour of AHL's resources for artists after the walk-through. All photos are courtesy of FFI artist Julie Carley.
Conclusion
The Flora and Fauna Illustrata collection is a long-term project to document all of the plant, animal, insect, and fungus species living at or passing through the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum through scientifically-accurate fine art. The project was created in 2015 out of collaboration between botanical artists and MLA members Suzanne Galloway and Judith Spiegel, and AHL's librarian Kathy Allen, and has since evolved into a robust collection of botanical and animal artworks. The collection is housed at AHL and overseen by AHL staff, notably the FFI coordinator. The collection serves as a visual regional and national resource to aid scientific and artistic research, and to foster learning, discovery, and enjoyment of the creatures living, or who once lived, at the MLA.
Further information about the FFI project, including submission information for interested artists and a link to digitized scans of all the works of art in the FFI collection, can be found on AHL's website:
Questions or comments about this digital exhibit, or any FFI-related inquiries?
Please contact AHL at hortlib@umn.edu or 612-301-1239.
