Elsie Louise Shaw was a naturalist and botanical artist many of whose watercolors are now in the collection of the

Gray Herbarium The Harvard University Herbaria and Botanical Museum are institutions located on the grounds of Harvard University at 22 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Botanical Museum is one of three which comprise the Harvard Museum of Natural ...

at Harvard University.

Biography

As an illustrator, Shaw provided 48 full-page color plates for Frances Theodora Parsons' book ''How to Know the Wild Flowers'' (1893), which was the first field guide to North American wildflowers. It was something of a sensation: the first printing sold out in five days, and it was praised by Theodore Roosevelt and Rudyard Kipling, among others. The work as remained in print into the 21st century, although most later editions did not include Shaw's color plates (although they did include the black-and-white illustrations by

Marion Satterlee Marion Satterlee (8 January 1868 – 9 June 1965) was an American botanical artist who in 1893 illustrated the first field guide to North American wildflowers. Artwork Marion Satterlee was a friend of the naturalist and author Frances Theodor ...

). Shaw also illustrated another of Parsons' books about wildflowers, ''According to Season'' (1902) with 32 full-page color plates. Shaw collected specimens of eastern North American wildflowers for the Gray Herbarium as well as for the University of Maine and the New England Botanical Club. She painted watercolors from these specimens—sometimes in the field—as well as from specimens collected by botanists like J. Franklin Collins, Merritt Lyndon Fernald, C.D. Lippincott, and Arthur H. Norton. Her "wonderfully accurate" paintings often show a small grouping of flowers on the stem with their leaves. Her paintings were mounted and bound into eight folios by her family and donated to the Gray Herbarium. The collection covers the years 1887–1934. The folios are organized into flower family groupings as follows: *Folio 1: Adder's tongue to iris *Folio 2: Orchids *Folio 3:

Sweet gale ''Myrica gale'' is a species of flowering plant in the family Myricaceae, native to parts of Japan, North Korea, Russia, mainland Europe, the British Isles and parts of northern North America, in Canada and the United States. Common names include ...

to crowfoot *Folio 4:

Barberry ''Berberis'' (), commonly known as barberry, is a large genus of deciduous and evergreen shrubs from tall, found throughout temperate and subtropical regions of the world (apart from Australia). Species diversity is greatest in South America a ...

to pulse *Folio 5: Wood sorrel to dogwood *Folio 6: Heath to borage *Folio 7: Mint to lobelia *Folio 8: Composites

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shaw, Elsie Louise American botanical illustrators Year of birth missing Place of birth missing 20th-century American artists 20th-century American women artists Harvard University people