In Bloom review – this riproaring history of botanical adventurers disturbs and delights

2026-03-17 - 16:29

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford From poppy seeds and opium pipes to the astonishing truth about tulips, science and obsession collide in this aromatic history of plants and pioneers Mary Somerset, Duchess of Beaufort, died in 1715 having spent her life changing the floral world. She procured plants from Africa, India, China, Japan and South America that had never been seen in Britain before. These were for her vast formal garden – a print featured in this delightful exhibition shows its regular avenues and plantations, all covering a considerable part of Gloucestershire. But if Somerset’s disciplined parkland is pure Age of Reason, a painting she commissioned of one of her sunflowers is a yellow ecstasy: a blazing cosmic eye staring wildly at you. Science and obsession, this show reveals, have never been far apart in the history of humans and plants. In the 1600s and 1700s, European botany made huge intellectual advances, filling European gardens with new colours and aromas. All this depended on growing commercial, naval and military might that brought the world’s seeds and bulbs to Britain and its neighbours. Yet even as pioneers collected and classified global flora, the sheer beauty and sensuality of flowers threatened to turn analysis into beauty-addled reverie. Continue reading...