Petal: The World of Flowers Through an Artist's Eye

by Adriana Picker

A compendium of floral wonder, Petal reveals the colors, details and unique sculptural beauty of nature’s most remarkable creations. Botanical artist Adriana Picker has curated specimens from all over the world to celebrate through her stunning illustrations, accompanied by writer Nina Rousseau's words on the folklore, fame and meaning of both favorite blooms and herbaceous curiosities. Petal features over two hundred flowers from twenty-seven plant families – from elegant roses to otherworldly orchids and magnificent magnolias – as well as a dedicated chapter for unusual specimens.

256 pages, Hardcover

Published February 6, 2024

Reviews

[Lulu Cao · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book tells interesting and lesser-known history, legends, and stories about flowers. For example, it mentions that dogwood timber, in the legend, was used to craft the cross for Jesus’s crucification. It also mentions that some orchid species are over-collected to the point of extinction.

The author provides a one-page description for each kind of flower and then showcases their artwork for several varieties of the flower. The illustrations are delicate and breathtaking. Although the author/artist might have focused on the rarer species of each of them. I don’t seem to find the common looks of roses and orchids in the book. Neither can I find the Missouri primrose and dogwood from the corresponding illustrations.

This version of the book, unfortunately, has smaller fonts than usual, which makes it hard to read for a long time. It is also pretty academic and uses many big words and scientific terms, which increases the reading difficulty.