Yet another reason to be proud of Berkshire. What a magnificent hog! 🐷

I have nothing very profound to say about these delicate Chinese prints, except how lovely they are! This is Shih-chu-chai Shu Hua P’u (the “Ten Bamboo Studio Treatise on Painting”). Copy at the @linneansociety, first edition, second superstate, produced sometime after 1703.

Can’t wait for this year’s SHNH Summer Meeting at Amgueddfa Caerdydd on June 13/14. Join us for two days of talks and tours exploring the colours of nature in all their glory! Discounts for students and SHNH members available. Book here 🔗 : eventbrite.com/e/the-palette-…

There’s still time to enter this year’s Stearn Student Essay competition, recognising the best essay on the history of natural history written by a current or recent student. £300 to be won! Deadline July 31. Details on the SHNH website here: shnh.org.uk/news/call-for-…

Showing visitors around the The Linnean Society of London is the best bit of the job—even better when the visitors are your Aussie relatives! 😀🇦🇺

Just five days left to enter the SHNH Stearn Essay Prize! Fame and riches await 🥳

More bookish ramblings from me on September 10, at 2pm. This time we’ll be looking at Elizabeth Blackwell and the gorgeous “Curious Herbal” (1737) she produced to rescue her family from debt. Free and online The Linnean Society of London. Book here 🔗: eventbrite.co.uk/e/linnean-lens…

It me! Please come. I have at least three good facts about Elizabeth Blackwell and a lovely book to show off. Put me on in the background while you’re doing something else.

My talk about Elizabeth Blackwell and her “Curious Herbal” is now on the The Linnean Society of London’s YouTube channel. It’s an imperfect presentation in lots of ways—and I make a few embarrassing mistakes—but I hope it’s a useful introduction to an amazing book 😊 youtu.be/SurhOJ_x71U?si…

This is the nicest thing I saw today. “Priamus polycletes” [sic] in Carl Clerck’s Icones insectorum rariorum (1759). This copy at the The Linnean Society of London is from the private library of Carl Linnaeus, and annotated by him.