Asa Gray and Trees
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The plates from Asa Gray’s Forest Trees of North America are among my favorite botanical prints. They were produced in the mid-1800s for a report and are works of art. They appeal to me for their beauty and their true-to-life accuracy. Most of them are trees I know and appreciate in Maryland….although the last one in the volume – labelled as a ‘dogwood’ is not the tree that we commonly have in our area by that name. I looked it up on Wikipedia with the genus/species name and found that its common name is green osier, alternate-leaved dogwood, and pagoda dogwood…and it isn’t native to the part of Maryland where I live; it does grow in far western Maryland, however.
