Plant Directory

With our plant directory, we aim to collate as many references to plants in literature as we can. Think of it as a digital herbarium or botanical journal, only all our plant ‘sightings’ take place within the habitat of the printed page. If you’re curious about what kind of plants tended to feature in various eras of English literature, you can navigate the tree below to find out. If you were wondering, for instance, what plants captured the imagination of Elizabethan dramatists and what they had to say about them, you could click the ‘Early Modern’ branch under ‘Drama’ to see every plant we have on record for that era. At present our records are mostly empty, so we welcome contributions from anyone who has an idea for an entry (if that proposed entry corresponds to a literary era not listed below, the tree can be modified to account for it). Please e-mail me at sb2357@cam.ac.uk to contribute.

– Spandan Banerjee

Postmodernism Modernism (Prose) Science Fiction Victorian Novels 18th Century Prose Restoration Prose Early Modern Prose Medieval Prose 21st Century Poetry 20th Century Poetry Victorian Poetry 18th Century Poetry Romantic Poetry 17th Century Poetry Early Modern Poetry Medieval Poetry 20th Century-Present (Drama) Victorian Drama Romantic Drama Restoration Drama Early Modern Drama Medieval Drama Classical Drama

Plant A-Z

Yew
Willow

Featured Posts

Vittoria’s Yew – The White Devil (1612)
Alexander Pope’s Willow – J.M.W Turner’s ‘On the Demolition of Pope’s House at Twickenham’ (1808)

Cheerless, Unsocial Yew – Robert Blair’s ‘The Grave’ (1743)
Owl-Hollowed Willows – Sylvia Plath’s ‘Watercolor of Grantchester Meadows’ (1959)
The Yew-Tree’s Shade – Thomas Gray’s ‘Elegy Written In A Country Churchyard’ (1751)
Pollard Willows – Thomas Hardy’s ‘Tess of the D’Urbervilles’ (1891)
Tristan & Iseult’s Hazel & Honeysuckle – Marie De France’s ‘Chevrefoil’ (12th Century)