When I founded my cannabis home grow shop, All Things Grow, I knew our most important mission would be teaching new growers. I also knew that one of the greatest tools for any teacher is strong visuals. I was fortunate to have been introduced to the wonder of botanical art and its historical role in the scientific understanding of plants through my friend Anna Laurent and her book The Botanical Wall Chart. A photograph may be worth a thousand words, but a botanical illustration can convey the exact message a teacher needs people to understand.
How could I explain to new growers that cannabis flowers have no petals, that the plant grows bulbous structures called trichomes, and that it has two genders, the female of which produces the smokable bud? While all of my students had smoked cannabis, very few had ever seen a living cannabis plant, let alone considered its growth behavior. In addition to exposing students to live plants, Anna’s influence taught me that a well-considered illustration would help focus their attention on the plant’s important features.
History overflows with incredible examples of botanical cannabis art. Since the first known cave drawing of cannabis from 10,000 BC in Kyushu, Japan, people have attempted to depict the plant. Until the late Middle Ages, most drawings represented little improvement over that cave painting. In the 10th century, a small illustration appeared in De Materia Medica by Dioscorides, the founder of pharmacology. Matthaeus Platearius’s Book of Simple Medicine featured a small cannabis illustration alongside a much larger depiction of mustard greens. The early Renaissance produced one of the greatest cannabis illustrations in the Grandes Heures of Anne of Brittany, a prayer book completed in 1508 containing two magnificent illustrations of both male and female cannabis plants among more than 300 other botanical depictions.
The depictions of cannabis didn’t become useful for budding botanists until the Enlightenment. Cannabis sativa received its scientific name from Carl Linnaeus in Species Plantarum, but his contemporary, botanical illustrator Elizabeth Blackwell, first provided a scientifically accurate depiction in her 1737 Herbarium Blackwellianum, where she mapped out the plant’s structure in full color while honoring its beauty.
As botany developed into its own field of study, botanical illustration gained greater significance in the 19th century, and a golden age for wall charts flourished. These diagrams, used to teach students about plant anatomy, were large enough to be seen from the back of a classroom and detailed enough to structure a lesson around. However, during botany’s growth as a scientific discipline, cannabis, with its atypical anatomy, was not the ideal teaching tool for budding botanists. Cannabis illustrations appeared mostly in pharmacopeias and collections by physicians and herbalists, who were more interested in the plant’s medicinal properties than its botanical structures.
Irish physician W.B. O’Shaughnessy was the first to introduce cannabis into modern Western medicine. After O’Shaughnessy joined the East India Company to study medicine in India, he created a beautiful illustration in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (1839), which explored the impact of “Indian Hemp, or Gunjah” on treating tetanus and convulsive disorders.
The late 19th century produced numerous botanical illustrations of cannabis highlighting either medicinal or commercial hemp applications. Edward Hamilton’s Flora Homoeopathica (1853) featured a full-color illustration capturing the delicacy of the plant’s fern-green leaves. German botanical illustrator Walther Otto Müller created an incredible depiction of the cannabis life cycle in full color, found in Franz Eugen Köhler’s Medizinal-Pflantzen (1887). Slovene botanist and writer Martin Cilenšek’s 1892 work Naše škodljive Rastline presented a detailed pen-and-ink rendering of the male and female plants. Finally, I discovered an 1897 woodblock print by German publishing house Bibliographisches, focusing on usable tree fiber plants, that appeared inspired by Müller’s work from a decade earlier. In the top corner, adjacent to agave and a palm tree, appeared a meticulous illustration of both genders, with depictions of pollen sacs and female flowers, plus detailed renderings of trichomes.
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While these were beautiful illustrations, none represented the perfect teaching tool. As a result, none contained all the elements I needed for my classes. I needed something that could serve as a single source for multiple points about cannabis and growing while also being visually engaging for students.
When I started my business educating people about cannabis, I wanted to discuss the project with Anna more than anyone else. Sadly, I couldn’t. She had told me about her cancer diagnosis a year earlier when she commented on a photo of my young daughter and I asked how she was doing. It was a rare cancer that moved quickly. She had hoped to finally meet my daughter, who had been born during the height of the pandemic. They never got that chance. Within six months, Anna was gone at 46.
Still in shock, my wife and I attended Anna’s memorial in Boston, where she had grown up. The tables were adorned with the extensive collection of seed pods Anna had gathered for her photographs, and her grieving husband encouraged us to take some and make them part of our lives. We sat at a table with another friend of Anna’s, Erin, a botanical illustrator who had met her at a typography conference in Boston and connected immediately. They had decided to stay in touch by sharing daily blind drawings of flowers, forming a deep bond that lasted until Anna’s passing. We were all devastated by her loss and the absence of someone with such brilliant artistic vision.
Months after starting my business, I knew exactly whom to call when my search for the perfect illustration failed: Erin. As we discussed what I was seeking, we realized that Anna’s collection of wall charts provided the perfect template for developing the first cannabis wall chart. While my small business barely had enough money to make rent, I knew commissioning her was essential.
A few months later, after numerous studies, Erin completed her work. It has since become the centerpiece of our cannabis classes. With one beautiful illustration, we can teach the basics of cannabis botany. Beyond a teaching tool, the chart is a standalone work of art and a fitting tribute to a great friend and brilliant artist whose life was cut far too short. Her legacy lives on through our love of art and the collection of seed pods I gathered at the memorial and later showed to my daughter.
