I have become really fixed and excited on the idea of using the medium of the plant label in combination with my illustrations, as not only is it a link to the work of Alec Finlay, which I really enjoy, but it also uses an instantly recognisable object (with a specific link to living plants) to ground my work in the imagery and semiotics of botany and botanical referencing and recording.
To be able to use the labels correctly, I have done a little research into the layout and meaning of different parts of the label – the below image is from the Cambridge University Botanic Gardens website, and explains what each part of the label means:
As you can see here, there are multiple sections of the label pertaining to the name of the plant – as many plants have both a scientific (latin) name and a common one, (which are both displayed in the centre of the label – one below the other respectively) in addition to the name of the Family (Kingdom, Phylum, Order, Family, Genus, Species), which is displayed small in the top right-hand corner. In the bottom left-hand corner, there is the Natural Distribution of the plant – effectively telling you on which continent the plant is found natively. Then in the top left-hand corner, there is the Accession Number, which tells you about that individual plant, and in the bottom right-hand corner is the provenance of the plant (basically, where it was grown).
Having learnt this, I have then taken the elements of the label which have the most relevance for my project and what I want to use them for, and created my own, modified but still instantly recognisable, form of botanical label, as shown in the image below:
In my design, you can see that I have deliberately kept all of the elements pertaining to the name and distribution of the plant, as these are key pieces of information. However, the plant’s provenance and Accession Number are only of real use when used in botanical gardens as a means of keeping track of the individual plants they have collected there. As I am creating illustrations of plants, I have removed these pieces of information and replaced the Provenance with a QR Code which will take you to a page of information about the plant (which I am yet to create). Where the Accession Code is, I want to try and create my own code, which gives information about the conservation status of the plant, as I have a spreadsheet of information waiting to be used!I am not sure exactly how the code would look, but I am going to work on creating one over the next few days.
Source: Cambridge Botanic Garden (2022) Understanding Plant Labels. Available at: https://www.botanic.cam.ac.uk/the-garden/understanding-plant-labels/ (accessed: 12 October 2021)
