This page provides links to places online
​where you can see images of botanical art produced over the centuries.  
It's impossible to get oneself physically to all the places where botanical art is archived - although some do try!
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​However digitisation of botanical images and their storage in online archives enables many students and fans of botanical art to access many more examples of the different ways plants have been portrayed over the centuries
Some of the databases listed below belong to organisations specifically concerned with Botanical Art.  Others archive images in systematic ways. 
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​See also the links in the pages devoted to Herbals and Florilegia

Image Databases maintained by Botanical Art Specialists
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Botanicus 
a freely accessible portal to historic botanical literature from the Missouri Botanical Garden Library. It includes 1,964 titles (books/journals) in 7,176 volumes

The BioDiversity Heritage Library

The Biodiversity Image Library - on Flickr (Albums)
The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) is a consortium of natural history and botanical libraries that cooperate to digitize the legacy literature of biodiversity held in their collections and to make that literature available for open access and responsible use as a part of a global “biodiversity commons.”
Catalogue of the Botanical Art Collection at the Hunt Institute
 the searchable database includes includes text records c. 30,000 original works - paintings (mostly watercolors), drawings and original prints - dating from the Renaissance onward. It's mainly organised by the artists' surnames but also includes a comprehensive taxonomic index.  The image records includes size and media and support used.
Plantillustrations
One man's effort to ensure that botanical images no longer covered by copyright are accessible within the public domain. The database can be found at plantillustrations.org / plantgenera.org / botanicalillustrations.org. Choose the device mode for viewing at the top.

Famous botanical art publications - on Wikipedia
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Wikimedia Commons
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All the links below relate to categories of botanical art and illustration which can be found online:
  • on Wikimedia Commons
  • or via the Flickr albums of the Biodiversity Heritage Library
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Famous botanical art publications (images)
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Picture
Apples and melons by Basilius Besler in Hortus Eystettensis

Botanical Illustrations
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Botanical illustrators 
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Botanists
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  • ​Category: Joseph Dalton Hooker Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker OM, GCSI, CB, FRS (30 June 1817 - 10 December 1911) was one of the greatest British botanists and explorers of the 19th century. Hooker was a founder of geographical botany, and Charles Darwin's closest friend.
Late white tulip, Golden garlic, Mountain garlic by Basilius Besler
Hortus Eystettensis | Plate: 79 Late white tulip, Golden garlic, Mountain garlic | 1613 By Basilius Besler (1561-1629) via Wikimedia Commons

Flora associated with geographical areas

UK - LONDON
Picture
Flora Londinensis - Leontodon Taraxacum Dandelion
AUSTRALIA


See also Flowering Plants and Ferns of New South Wales Plates at the University of Sydney
Picture
Eucalyptus Robusta by Edward Minchen (1862-1913)

INDIA
  • Flora Indica - a Kew website funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation contains Roxburgh's 3 volume text-only Flora Indica published posthumously in 1832, PLUS the illustrations he commissioned of most of the plants he described. 
JAPAN
Picture
Icones of Japanese algae.. Tokyo,Kazamashobo[1907-1942]. biodiversitylibrary.org/page/1250286

Plants
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Other Online Botanical Art History Sites
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  • Botanical Illustration - maintained by an art teacher in the USA
  • Antiquariaat Junk - the website of a Dutch bookseller of fine Antiquarian Natural History Books, including handcoloured books on Flowers, Herbals, and Botanical Classics - many of which have been partially digitized
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