Southern Wildflowers Bookmark | Botanical Illustration | Nature Gift | Field Guide | Flower Lover Gift

The flowers bloom regardless of everything. They always have.

For every person who has pulled over on a Georgia road in April because the wildflowers in the ditch were doing something extraordinary and needed to be looked at properly.
For every hiker who knows the Appalachian trail not just by its elevation and its mileage but by what is blooming in each section at each time of year — the trout lilies in March and the Virginia bluebells in April and the cardinal flowers blazing red at the creek bank in August.
For every reader who keeps a wildflower field guide in the car because you never know what you are going to need to identify and you would rather be prepared.
This bookmark is for all of you. The wildflowers of the American South. Finally rendered with the scientific beauty they deserve.

✦ ABOUT THIS BOOKMARK
A richly illustrated naturalist botanical plate in the tradition of the mid-century American wildflower field guides and the Victorian botanical illustration tradition — the flat watercolor washes and clean confident ink line work of the best botanical field guide illustration, rendered on warm aged cream field guide page background.

Six beloved wildflowers of the American South arranged in an alternating left-right pattern down the bookmark — each plant shown as a complete botanical specimen including stem and leaf and flower in the botanical illustration tradition, rendered with the flat wash and clean ink line that makes botanical field guide illustration the most beautiful and most useful genre of natural history art.
The CARDINAL FLOWER opens the plate in vivid scarlet — the most vivid native wildflower of the Eastern stream bank, the flower that hummingbirds were made for. The BLACK-EYED SUSAN follows in golden yellow and dark brown. The VIRGINIA BLUEBELLS in their pale pink-to-blue trumpet form. The PURPLE CONEFLOWER with its drooping rose-purple rays and spiny orange cone. The YELLOW JESSAMINE — the state flower of South Carolina — in its vivid yellow trumpet vine form. The WILD BERGAMOT closes the plate in soft lavender.

Common name and scientific name labeled below each plant in clean warm serif typography.

✦ BOOKMARK DETAILS
— Size: 2.15 inches wide by 6.75 inches tall — Printed on premium card stock — Full color illustration front with matte finish — Arrives in a kraft envelope in a protective sleeve — Ready to use in your current read or to give to the botanist or wildflower lover in your life

✦ PERFECT FOR
— Wildflower enthusiasts and amateur botanists who love the Southern plant world — Hikers who pay attention to what is blooming on the trail — Gardeners who grow native plants and love them specifically — Anyone who has ever pulled over to look at wildflowers on a Southern road — Nature journalers who sketch plants in the field — Readers who love botanical illustration and the Victorian natural history tradition — Gifts for the person who knows their wildflowers by scientific name — Book lovers who love nature writing — this bookmark belongs in every Annie Dillard and Robin Wall Kimmerer title — Spring and summer gifts for the nature lover who notices what is blooming — Anyone who keeps a wildflower field guide and uses it

✦ THE CARDINAL FLOWER
The Cardinal Flower is the first wildflower on this plate because it is the most vivid native wildflower of the Eastern United States and because hummingbirds were essentially designed around it or possibly the other way around — the relationship between the cardinal flower and the ruby-throated hummingbird is one of the great co-evolutionary love stories of the Eastern natural world and it happens along every Southern creek bank every August.

The color of the cardinal flower in flat wash is the most saturated red in the entire botanical plate. It is the first thing your eye goes to. This is correct. It is the first thing the hummingbird's eye goes to as well.

✦ THE COMPLETE NATURE SERIES
This bookmark is part of The Nature Series — nine naturalist field guide plate bookmarks. See our shop for the complete collection.

✦ SHIPPING
Ships within 3 to 5 business days. Arrives in a kraft envelope so your bookmark comes to you simply and beautifully. The cardinal flowers are blooming at the creek bank. The hummingbirds have found them. Everything is proceeding correctly.

✦ ABOUT OUR SHOP
Every bookmark in our shop is designed and produced professionally by us — made with care in our own studio and printed on premium materials we stand behind completely. We are a small passionate operation and we treat every order like it matters because it does.

We are committed to five star service on every single order — from the moment you click to the moment your bookmark arrives at your door flat and perfect and ready to live inside your favorite book. If anything is ever less than exactly right please reach out and we will make it right immediately. We respond to every message promptly and we mean it — real people, real responses, no automated runaround.

Thank you for supporting a small independent bookmark maker. It means everything to us and we do not take it for granted. We hope this bookmark finds exactly the right book and exactly the right reader.

Michelle and Julie
The Luna and Loom 📚