The ultimate gift for gardeners and art-lovers, featuring 300 of the most beautiful and pioneering botanical images ever Now available in a chic compact format, this visually stunning survey from Phaidon’s Explorer series celebrates the extraordinary beauty and diversity of plants. It combines photographs and cutting-edge micrograph scans with paintings, drawings, and prints, to bring this universally popular and captivating subject vividly to life. Carefully selected by an international panel of experts and arranged in a uniquely structured sequence to highlight thought-provoking contrasts and similarities, this stunning compilation of botanically themed images includes iconic work by celebrated artists, photographers, scientists, and botanical illustrators, as well as rare and previously unpublished images. Winner of the Council on Botanical and Horticultural Libraries 2025 Award of Excellence in Series, this is the perfect gift for every plant lover and gardener. Advisory panel : Rosie Atkins, Gillian Barlow, Brent Elliott, Celia Fisher, Patricia Jonas, Rob Kesseler, Hans Walter Laack, Gren Lucas, Henry Noltie, Mikinori Ogisu, Pia Östlund, Lynn Parker, Martyn Rix, Charlotte Tancin, Alice Tangerini, and Anita Walsmit Sachs Additional texts : Rosie Atkins, Helen Bynum, Ruth Chivers, James Compton, Tim Cooke, Brent Elliott, Celia Fisher, Carolyn Fry, Patricia Jonas, Rob Kesseler, Hans Walter Lack, Paula McWaters, Pia Östlund, Lynn Parker, Martyn Rix, Julian Shaw, Charlotte Tancin, Alice Tangerini, Guy Tindale, Jacek Wajer, and Martin Walters. As featured in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, The Daily Telegraph, Garden & Gun, Gardens Illustrated, The Guardian, Martha Stewart Living, Natural History Magazine, New Scientist, Newsweek, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Seattle Times, Smithsonian, The Sunday Times, Tatler, The Wall Street Journal, and on Atlas Obscura, BBC Focus, Goop, and mental floss ‘The ultimate gift for gardeners and art-lovers.’ – Goop ‘A breathtaking collection of botanical prints, photos, drawings, and even micrograph scans.’ – Martha Stewart Living ‘Plant may start on your coffee table, but it won't stay there for long.’ – Flower Magazine ‘An extraordinary collection.’ – Gardens Illustrated ‘I am totally mesmerized by the extraordinary range of artists, scientists and technicians represented. Wonderful and absorbing and loving.’ – Edwina von Gal, Landscape Designer ‘From the winning cover to the beautiful images inside, Plant is a complete pleasure covering centuries of botanical art. Artist information and provenance is dutifully recorded. Inspiration and imagination is there for the taking. This new book is classic Phaidon and bound to be a bestseller.’ – David Whitman, Pergola ‘The timeless pleasure of looking at plants: a new illustrated book examines mankind's fascination with making images of plants through the ages... Compton's fascination with what different people have done within the remit of botanical art jumps out of every one of Plant ’s pages. The variety is astounding.’ – The Daily Telegraph ‘An inspiring delight and great resource for those who cherish all things botany.’ – Emily Thompson, Emily Thompson Flowers ‘The side by side juxtapositions of images here are brilliant. The clear pencil drawings of Van Gogh and Ellsworth Kelly my favorites, so delicate, just gorgeous.’ – Perry Guillot, Landscape Architect ‘My award for sumptuous volume of 2016 has to go to Plant: Exploring the Botanical World , 300 works of botanical art from ancient times to the present in every imaginable medium... The images are thought-provokingly juxtaposed.’ – The Sunday Times, Move ‘Botanical art of all kinds, from a Minoan fresco of swallows billing among ocher red Lilium chalecondicum, painted circa 1600 B.C., to a hand-colored image from a scanning electron microscope of the seed of an alpine pincushion flower, its plum-colored skirts floating like a ballerina mid-jeté. These are things of beauty, but they have a purpose beyond decoration. Plant 's editors [...] don't confine themselves to the strictly scientific.’ – Newsweek ‘Celebrates the beauty and diversity of plants from around the world across all media – from murals in ancient Greece to a Napoleonic-era rose print and cutting-edge scans.’ – The Guardian ‘300 of the loveliest botanical images ever collated.’ – Town and Country ‘A glorious visual compendium of plants and flowers that spans thousands of years.’ – Atlas Obscura ‘This beautiful new book is like having a botanical art exhibition on your coffee table.’ – Waitrose Weekend ‘A glorious presentation of how we've represented flora and fauna in art and photography throughout history.’ – Outdoor Photography ‘Gorgeous... Fascinating... [An] unprecedented range of artists... A highly nuanced curation of imagery from across the ages. An indispensable coffee table book for the green-fingered and mere admirers alike.’ – AnOther Magazine ‘It might be a bit early, but