Pressing Flora

Sometimes, when you share something of interest to you with family and friends, they express a desire to try it out themselves. This has certainly been the case with my passion for pressing flora. This past spring when the wildflowers were in bloom on our land we extended an invitation to join us for collecting wild flowers and putting them in the press. The added bonus of such family fun is the opportunity to meet again to open the wooden presses and mount your specimens.

Our guests arrived enthusiastic, some with a few roadside flora clippings already in hand; others with both clippings and a bottle of wine to go with dinner.

When we were ready to take a walk through the gardens and out to the wilder beyond, each person picked up a basket and a pair of scissors or secateurs. These are baskets I bought long ago at a super sale at a local arts and crafts store and painted Pelham Gray Light. They are used for carrying plates, drying leaves for potpourri, and certainly for folded laundry. Others are used for holiday ornaments.

As they hiked the land it was clear each had a plan in mind… “I’m collecting all lavender colored flowers”, “I’m looking for flowers with petals like the giant sunflower I found on the way here,” “I’m going to walk in a straight line and collect one of each type of wildflower I pass”. There is an abundance of all sorts of plants and wildflowers in the Texas Hill Country. On this particular day my choices were a bit of a vine hanging from a tree and a two white wildflowers.

(Eye of a Lady by an unidentified artist en.paperblog.com)

As we continued to collect specimens there were questions flying about the names of the wildflowers. We looked closely at the stems, and leaves as well as the blooms, noticing unique characteristics. Later we would be able to use my Texas wildflower identification guides to be more specific.

One couple was interested in the framed specimens I had made previously, particularly in the labeling of the specimen. We talked about how a scientific collection would include roots and blooms and how the specimen would be put into the press to dry in such a way that plant parts were clearly displayed. My label contains information about the date of collection, location, common and scientific name, and the name of the person or persons who collected and identified the specimen.

An article by Margaret Roach published in the New York Times on August 16, 2023 ‘Why Are People Still Pressing Flowers? It’s a Form of Storytelling’ refers to a how-to guide for creating a herbarium or collection of preserved plant specimens and data used for scientific study. The author, Linda P.J. Lipsen wrote the guide, “Pressed Plants: Making a Herbarium” and is also the curator of the University of British Columbia Herbarium. The photo of the lily above is from the University of British Columbia Herbarium.

This photo taken from the British Columbia Herbarium website demonstrates how specimens might be labeled.

When we had finished gathering we went inside to long tables where several presses were open and waiting. Sheets of corrugated cardboard were in the presses with stacks of plain newsprint paper beside each press. Our process was to put a sheet of plain newsprint on top of a sheet of cardboard arrange the flowers on the newsprint, lay another sheet of newsprint on top and then another piece of cardboard, repeating the process until all the flowers were stacked and covered. We talked about how juicier specimens might be more difficult to press, as would extremely thick blooms with dense, prickly stems such as the Texas thistle.

It was fascinating to see the care with which they arranged the flowers, composing a beautiful group picture of specimens. They came up with the idea of putting their initials on the pages of specimens they created so several people could share a single press.

There was much discussion of how tightly to twist the wing nuts on the bolts closing the presses. The process involves periodic tightening and this would be done by me. We labeled the top of the press with the current date as a matter of good practice as it a good idea to wait at least 2 weeks before opening the press and removing the specimens. If you tape the date on top of the press it will be simpler to keep track of the timing.

As you might imagine it was a month or more before all of us could get together again. In preparation for the day, the room was arranged with archival glue, archival tape, scissors, specimen labels, various acid-free backing papers, fine point marking pens, and wildflower identification guide books. The family wanted to frame their specimens so each of them arrived with a frame in hand.

Several of them brought two sheets of glass with a frame around the glass. This required them to take off the end of the frame, place the flowers, and then try to reframe the glass. When one frame was put back together and lifted the flowers slipped around and fell to the bottom. This first attempt revealed we had to use clear drying archival glue to fasten the specimens to one sheet of glass before putting it all together. Another person broke one sheet of the glass when attempting to put it back in the frame. We decided this might have been due to the thickness of the specimen and put the single sheet of glass covered in flowers on a picture stand instead.

My nephew asked if I was disappointed that they hadn’t done it the same way I had done. For me, it was exciting to see other approaches. Their specimens were robust, joyful, and full of movement. Lovely to see. When we had framed as many specimens as they wanted, we used a folded and taped piece of cardboard to preserve the other specimens for travel.

On another day vines removed from our trees were pressed. While waiting for them to dry there was time to mix a tea dye using tea bags and some Winsor and Newton Squirrel Brown ink. Each piece of heavy weight art paper was soaked for 5 minutes to maintain consistency of color. Damp paper was put on sheets of kraft paper in a drying rack.

Two weeks later the press is opened and the vines organized by size of leaf.

Using a small pair of scissors to clip particularly attractive leaves and/or vine formations allows you to create bookmatched pairs. Bookmatching is typically a term used with marble or wood grain when patterns are matched and placed in relation to one another to create a mirrored or open book effect.

Here is a photo of the framed vine leaves. The frames were purchased at a local craft store, painted, and then the inside edge gilded. This is a nice way to further customize your work and maintain a small palette of color in a room.

In some ways the pressed vine leaves remind me of this extraordinarily beautiful book of 15^th century prints of Zenobia Pacini in Miguel Flores-Vianna’s book, A Wandering Eye: Travels With My Phone.

The friends and family gatherings for flower pressing and flower mounting both culminated in having dinner together. How wonderful it is to have friends and family members who share some interests and can inspire you to further creativity. The photo above is of my weeping yucca bloom pressings between two sheets of vellum. I love the misty, ethereal effect. In answer to the question posed in Margaret Roach’s article ‘Why are People Still Pressing Flowers?…” Perhaps because we can preserve beauty and personalize the way we do it. Or, as one family member shared, “We want to personalize our home with things we created on the walls. “