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Flora by Nick Knight and Sandra Knapp, Shirmer/Mosel, £40, ISBN
3888142385

WHAT is a British fashion photographer doing leafing through plant samples at
the Natural History Museum? Nick Knight has revealed the riches hidden among the
museum’s dried and pressed plant specimens. Among his finds was the water lily,
Nymphaea norchali,collected in 1905.

Knight spent three and a half years examining thousands of dried plants from
the 6 million strong collection, one of the biggest archives of plant specimens
in the world. He photographed several hundred and in Flora,he presents
46 stunning images. It’s startling to see plants given the same treatment as a
fashion shoot: the attention to light (he used two sources) and layout produces
pictures that jump off the page.

And he’s left his mark at the museum—a permanent display of the
treasures he discovered forms an exhibition, Plant Power at the Natural History
Museum, London.

Botany curator Sandra Knapp pins the plants to the page with her descriptions
of their biology and the use to which we put them. This lily, for example,
drowns beetles, bees and flies in a watery trap.

Who’s the book for? If you’re looking for a present, it’ll suit the
scientific, the stylish, the photographers and the gardeners. So buy it.