What's included

The Book and Magazine Citations to Plant Information & Images section lists which books and magazines have color images (and often accompanying information) of specific plants, what pages the images are on and what parts of the plant are shown. The text and illustrations themselves are not included, mainly due to copyright restrictions. However, many of the books and magazines covered may be found in your own collection or at your local public, academic or other special library. For a full list of which titles are indexed, see Indexed Works. Both scientific and popular works are included. This section currently contains nearly 400,000 citations to more than 140,000 different plants of the world. It is updated daily.

Plant illustrations (both photographs and artistic renditions are acceptable) must be in color to be included in this section and the scientific name must be given or easily surmised. Each citation includes the plant’s family, genus and species names, and variety, cultivar or trademarked/registered name, if applicable. Each listing also indicates what part of the plant the image shows (such as flower, fruit, habit, root, seed, twig or bark). Plants found in advertisements (Adv.) are included.

History

More than 300 years of published botanical illustrations have been selectively indexed, dating from G. A. Pritzel’s Iconum botanicarum index locupletissimus (An alphabetical register...), published in 1855 with a supplement in 1866. This work covered published illustrations of plants from the 18th and 19th centuries. Otto Stapf’s Index londinensis and its supplement (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1929-31; 1941) indexed botanical illustrations published from 1865 to 1935.

The Flowering plant index of illustration and information and its supplement (Boston, Mass. : G. K. Hall, 1979; 1982), compiled and edited by Richard T. Isaacson, covered plant illustrations (for the first time including many photographs) published from 1936-1982 . The FPI: Flowering Plant Index (Chanhassen, MN : Andersen Horticultural Library, University of Minnesota Libraries, Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, 1991-1997), also compiled and edited by Isaacson, selectively indexes images from 1982 through 1997.

This long-standing run of indexes was continued in electronic format with the transfer of all FPI: Flowering plant index entries to the Internet in 1997, forming the Book and Magazine Citations to Plant Information & Images section of Plant Information Online. Entries for plant images from current botanical and horticultural literature have been added or updated nearly daily since then.