Ferns: Lessons in Survival from Earth’s Most Adaptable Plants
Book Recommendation by Cheryl McCaffrey
As an avid follower of the @LetsBotanize Instagram account, I was excited when I received my copy of Ferns: Lessons in Survival from Earth's Most Adaptable Plants, written by Fay-Wei Li and Jacob S. Suissa. I discovered @LetsBotanize in 2020 when they started their Instagram account as PhD students at Harvard University. At that time, they were documenting many of their videos about plants in the Arnold Arboretum, about 2 miles from where I live.
I was even more excited to learn that Laura Silburn illustrated over 70 stunning illustrations for Ferns. Laura is a very accomplished botanical artist based in the UK who has won three Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) Gold Medals (2013, 2014, and 2018). Her 2018 project focused on AGM Dryopteris: species and cultivars of Dryopteris ferns.
Ferns: Lessons in Survival from Earth's Most Adaptable Plants, written by Fay-Wei Li and Jacob S. Suissa, illustrated by Laura Silburn
Ferns have nearly 11,000 species currently living, and this book beautifully describes the history, science, and various species of ferns. Having survived mass extinction events, there is so much to learn about these unique plants and the book is written like a story, covering the past, present and future of ferns.
The writing is clear and very accessible to non-scientists, even including a fern named after Lady Gaga (Gaga germanotta, for those curious). Interspersed throughout the book are two-page spreads highlighting a single fern species, complete with a description and full-page illustration by Laura Silburn.
Botanical artist Laura Silburn has captured the beauty and complexity of ferns. Each painting is a study in composition, ranging from zoomed-in, cropped views to habitats in situ.
The book features scientific botanical illustrations, from one showing parts of a fern to another depicting the fern life cycle.
In the chapter “Ferns in the Water,” Laura cleverly splits the composition vertically, showing the plant both above and below the water.
On another page, she creates a library page of crested fronds popular during the Victorian era. By painting in monochrome, the shapes and textures are brought into focus, and the elegance of the fern shapes seems to drift across the page.
This is a delightful book celebrating the world of ferns—a beautiful small coffee table book for artists, fern lovers, or anyone interested in the natural world.
All images are the property of ©Laura Silburn - Copying, saving, reposting, or republishing of the artwork is prohibited without the express permission of the artist.
Laura Silburn is an award-winning botanical artist who has painted over 40 illustrations in Ferns.
Laura has received three prestigious RHS Gold Medals for her botanical artwork, in 2013, 2014 and 2018 and has also received the RHS Best in Show Award (2014) and RHS Best Botanical Painting award (2018).
Fay-Wei Li grew up in Taiwan and studied for his PhD at Duke University, where he and his advisor, Kathleen Pryer named a new fern genus Gaga after Lady Gaga. In 2017, Fay-Wei joined Boyce Thompson Institute at Cornell University as an assistant professor. His fern research has featured in the New York Times, the Economist, and Rolling Stone magazine. Biography from nhbs.com. Learn more at letsbotanize.org
Jacob S. Suissa completed his PhD in Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. As a classically trained botanist and evolutionary biologist, Jacob asks how plants build their bodies, how they function, and how they have evolved across geologic time, with a focus on ferns. Jacob runs the science communication video series, Let's Botanize. Biography from nhbs.com. Learn more at letsbotanize.org
For more information and for links to purchase, visit the publisher website, hardiegrant.com