Florence Nightingale's Gift Examined

From Plant Press, Vol. 4, No. 2 from April 2001.

Examining fragments form an 1894 wedding bouquet are, from left, Aaron Goldberg, Dan Nicolson, Deborah Bell, Nancy McCall, Janet Draper, and Lauranne Nash. (Photo by James DiLoreto)

The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions archivist Nancy McCall contacted Botany to identify the remains of a 19th century floral bouquet, sent by Florence Nightingale to Isabel Hampton, the first director of the School of Nursing at Johns Hopkins, on the occasion of Hampton’s wedding.

            Botany invited representatives from Horticultural Services to contribute their expertise in history, construction and flower composition when the plant remains were brought to the Botany Branch library on February 9.  Smithsonian botanists Deborah Bell, Robert Faden, Aaron Goldberg, Greg McKee and Dan Nicolson huddled over the plant fragments and identified three ferns (Adiantum, Asplenium, Dryopteris), flowering carnations and roses, three  flowering plants used for foliage effects (Asparagus, Myrtus, Mahonia), and Sphagnum moss used in construction.  Lauranne Nash (Horticultural Services) observed that the plant material in each small bundle wrapped with moss and wired, would be representative of the composition of the entire bouquet, and thus the flowers-to-greens ratio could not be discerned. The Johns Hopkins School of Nursing wishes to recreate the bouquet for exhibition.