April Flowers

        Yesterday T came home from school with a little viola plant she'd found growing in a crack in the sidewalk.  She'd carefully gathered up its roots with it, and it looked just like this charming little botanical woodcut.  Although it sat in T's backpack all the way through cello lesson, homework, and dinner, we gave it plenty of water overnight and it perked right back up.  I guess that's why they call them Johnny jump-ups.

        It's also daffodil time here, which is always cause for celebration.  The miniatures are already out, and the first of the larger yellow daffodils are cheerfully smiling into today's dismal April showers.  In celebration of daffodils, therefore, here is a collection of block prints of one of my very favorite flowers.

[Pictures: Woodcut of Viola tricolor from The Herball by John Gerard, 1597 (Image from Picturing Plants);
Wild Daffodil, rubber block print by AEGN, 1997;
Woodcut of daffodils from Rariorum Plantarum Historia by Carolus Clusius, 1601 (Image from Biodiversity Heritage Library);

Untitled Japanese woodcut of a narcissus by artist whose name I don't know how to read, c 1950s (Image from oldimprints.com);

Woodcut of narcissus by Hans Weiditz, from Herbarum vivae eicones by Otto Brunfels, 1530-2 (Image from UMAssAmherst).]