Conference - Remembering James Petiver (1665-1718)

26th April 2018
The Linnean Society of London

Registration Now Open - see here

This day meeting marks the tercentenary of the death of James Petiver FRS, an important but often overlooked professional apothecary and compulsive natural historian in 18th-century London. Petiver made significant contributions to multiple fields of natural history, above all botany and entomology. An assiduous correspondent and collector, he successfully cultivated sources of natural historical intelligence and material from the Americas to the East Indies.

Speakers will assess Petiver's life and legacy by deploying a range of historical and scientific disciplinary perspectives. On the 300th anniversary of his death, the meeting will set out to remember James Petiver:

• as a practising natural historian of substantial abilities and merit
• as a collector and cataloguer of natural historical specimens with enduring significance
• as a writer of both manuscript correspondence and published natural historical texts
• as an apothecary whose professional and private scientific interests mutually informed each other
• as a social networker both within London and across the globe
• as an historical figure whose legacy has been contested and which is ripe for reconsideration

Speakers: Dr Arnold Hunt, Dr Charles E Jarvis FLS, Sebestian Kroupa, Dr Alice Marples, Katrina Maydom, Professor Kathleen S Murphy, Dr Victoria Pickering, Professor Richard Vane-Wright FLS. Respondent: Dr Emma Spary.

Organisers: Richard Coulton, Charlie Jarvis.

Talk and book signing: 'Cunning, Killer Orchids: sex, science, fiction and Darwin'

Jim Endersby will be giving a free talk based on his new book - Orchid a cultural history - on 25th Feb at 2pm in the auditorium of the Sainsbury Laboratory at the Botanic Garden. Tickets are free but pre-booking is required. Please collect a ticket from the Garden Ticket Offices or email enquiries@botanic.cam.ac.uk or call 01223 336265.

The talk will last about 45 minutes, followed by questions and a book signing.

More about the book:

Revealing the allure and wonder of orchids, following their story through history and exploring how key themes of science, empire, sex and death have shaped orchids and how orchids, in return have shaped our own investigations and associations. Find out how Darwin's theory of evolution became intimately entangled with the story of the orchid as well as the part they have played in our culture.

Digital Exhibition - Poetic Botany

Online from the New York Botanical Garden here.

Emily Dickinson's Herbarium

Digitised by the Houghton Library at Harvard here.