It was a real privilege to present a paper at this wonderful and welcoming conference where I met and learned from so many lovely people. Thank you to @zarakesterton.bsky.social and @lucyjhavard.bsky.social for organising and being the perfect hosts. #plantsandpeople

Greatly enjoyed the Unearthed exhibition last Thursday in the @britishlibrary.bsky.social. It was such a perfect ending to my visit to England for the @people-plants-2025.bsky.social conference. I was not aware of the exhibition until the last moment, so luckily I could squeeze in a visit!

That’s a wrap on #plantsandpeople! Thanks to all of our wonderful speakers, keynotes, artists, and attendees for two days of fantastic discussion and hands-on experimentation. Over and out from @zarakesterton.bsky.social and @lucyjhavard.bsky.social !

Now for the final paper of the day! We hear from Christina Welch from the University of Winchester on ‘People and Plants in the Colonial Caribbean: Indigenous and Enslaved African People’s Medicinal and Horticultural Knowledge’ 🌱 🌅 🌺 #peopleandplants

Next up is a paper by Margaux Shraiman entitled 'A Surinamese Butterfly Among Cape Flowers: Maria Sibylla Merian’s Copies of botanical illustrations from the Cabinet of Johanna Breda and Levinus Vincent' 🌼🦋 #plantsandpeople

…and a glimpse into our earlier study session at the Fitzwilliam Museum, a tour of the botanical highlights of the prints and drawings collection led by Catherine Powell Warren 🌷🖌️ #plantsandpeople

Our final panel of the conference on ‘Empire and Knowledge’ begins with Joseph Bienko’s paper on 'Baconian Buccaneering: William Dampier’s Excursion to Panama' ⛵️🌿 #plantsandpeople

And now for the final paper of this panel on Medical Knowledge… Lauren Owen’s from Florida State University speaks to us about recipes for health and wellness in 18thC France! #plantsandpeople

Yizhou Wang from Hong Kong Baptist University now presenting her paper entitled ‘Botanical Illustrations of Dandelions, Crisis, and Women in Early Modern China’! #plantsandpeople

Our third panel of the conference on Medical Knowledge kicks off with a paper from Nikolas Brusletto on ‘Botanical Knowledge in the Norwegian Black Books: Folk Medicine, Embodied Experience, and Social Networks’! #plantsandpeople

We have two workshops running in tandem this morning at the #plantsandpeople conference - one on botanical images at the Fitzwilliam Museum, and a practical workshop on early modern dye production with Nabil Ali! Thanks to @jesuscollegecam.bsky.social for the use of your greenhouses!

A beautifully sunny afternoon in the Cambridge Botanic Gardens learning about natural plant dyes with Nabil Ali 🌸🪻🌺 #plantsandpeople

Our second and final keynote of the day, @leoniehannan.bsky.social now speaking on ‘Plants as Process: Embodied Knowledge and the ‘Liberty of Air’’! #plantsandpeople

And moving to the final paper of this panel, ‘Gardening as Knowledge Practice: Historical Handbooks for Kitchen Gardens’ by Sanne Steen 🪏🪴📚 #plantsandpeople

And now it’s time for Janet Stiles Tyson’s paper, ‘A Curious Herbal in the Commercial Book Market’, examining Elizabeth Blackwell’s famous illustrated work #plantsandpeople

And we’re back, fuelled after a lovely lunch break! 🥗 🌯🥪 We begin our panel on ‘Books and Knowledge’ with a paper from Grace Murray from Birkbeck entitled ‘Marginalia and Memory Books: Writing Garden Labour in Eighteenth-Century London’ #plantsandpeople

The final paper of this panel is from Maja-Lisa Müller from Universität Bielefeld, entitled ‘Mushrooms and Mimesis: 18thC Wax Models as Deictic and Didactic Boundary Objects’! 🍄🍄‍🟫🍄

Now we hear from Alasdair McNeill from Birkbeck on ‘Cheesemakers and Plant Knowledge in Early Modern England’! 🧀🌻 #plantsandpeople

Now onto our first panel on ‘Embodied Knowledge’! We begin with a paper by Océane Fontaine Cioffi on ‘Naming Selecting, and Using Plants: Botanical Knowledge in 16thC Perfumery’… 🌸🌺🪻#plantsandpeople

Kicking off #plantsandpeople with a fantastic keynote from Catherine Powell-Warren on ‘Plants as Vectors in Female Artistic Community Building’!

Only two spaces left for our Natural Dyes workshop, and our Botanical Illustrations study session is already sold out! Grab your spot here: sites.google.com/view/plants-...

Registration is now OPEN for our conference 'Plants and People'! Please sign up for attendance and workshops through our website: sites.google.com/view/plants-... Thanks to @sshmedicine.bsky.social @camhistory.bsky.social & the Material Culture Forum for their generous assistance.

Our website is now LIVE! Follow the link to see our exciting programme, workshops, and register to attend: sites.google.com/view/plants-...

...and that's our Call for Papers officially closed! We received a fantastic number of abstracts. We're looking forward to selecting papers for our conference in the next few days, and will be in touch with all applicants as soon as we can.

Three days left to respond to our Call for Papers! Send your abstracts and bios to [email protected] and [email protected] by Friday 14 March

We are delighted to announce our #CfP for 'Plants and People: the cultivation and propagation of botanical knowledge among non-professional communities, c.1600–1800'! Please email your abstracts (300 words) and bios to @zarakesterton.bsky.social @lucyjhavard.bsky.social, by 14 March 🪴