The New England Botanical Society October 2 meeting is presented by Peter Grima at 5:30 PM – Hybrid at Harvard University, Cambridge, and over Zoom

Non-members, please register here

Emily Dickinson’s Herbarium is a beautiful and fascinating collection of 424 pressed plants, exhibiting the same kind of careful attention to detail she later applied to her poetry. More than half of these are wildflowers native to the poet’s home landscape of greater Amherst, Massachusetts. Most intriguing are the many rare or locally extirpated taxa among her specimens. The breadth of wildflowers portrays her as an active and meticulous observer of the natural world, and they also represent tangible examples of the same plants she invoked in her poetry with direct connections to the ecological landscape of 19th century Amherst.

In this talk, Peter Grima will dive into Dickinson’s botanical training and interests, as well as the process of creating her Herbarium. He’ll draw connections to her poetry and give examples of how botanical and ecological understanding can enhance our engagement with her work. He’ll also explore the wildflowers and share what they tell us about the Amherst landscape as Dickinson would have experienced it.