Herbaria and Old Illustrations:

Before photography and why not today as an alternative, illustrations are the first tools of naturalists. You will find after my own photographs some old illustrations from the 16th century to the first half of the 20th century. Among the oldest representations, it will sometimes be very complicated to recognize in these naive and approximate drawings for some, our orchids as we know them. It is unfortunately just as complicated to search in herbariums for a way to identify our discoveries.
Among the significant works or the most representative illustrators of European terrestrial orchids, we can cite:
- Franz Bauer (1758-1840). Austrian but worked at the Royal Botanic Gardens of Kew Garden.
- Illustrated flora of Nice and the Maritime Alps (1868) by Jean Baptiste Barla (1817-1896).
- Iconography of orchids of Europe and the Mediterranean basin (1929) by Edmond Camus (1852-1915).
- Claus Caspari (1911-1980), German illustrator.
- Jacobus Landwehr (1911-1996): Dutch author and illustrator of the 2-volume work Orchids of Europe (1977).
- Eliza Klopfenstein (1921-2018): Belgian illustrator.