From Sunday 27 September – Sunday 15 November 2026
As part of our yearlong programme, Folklore ReRooted, we are delving into our archive to uncover historical texts and explore the fascinating folklore, traditions and stories surrounding the natural world.
For this ‘act’, we are turning our attention to autumnal plants and fungi, exploring their place in plant-lore and the ways people have understood, used and recorded them throughout history. This research forms the basis of Plantlore, a new exhibit exploring the stories and histories behind some of our autumnal Garden highlights.
Plantlore is free with Garden entry, bringing together historical accounts from our archive, botanical art and other historical references carried out in partnership with the University of Hertfordshire.
Working with researchers and lecturers Dr Jenifer Evans and Dr Ceri Houlbrook from the University of Hertfordshire, we have explored our collection of historic books, uncovering texts that offer a glimpse into changing attitudes towards plants, fungi and the natural world.
Among the books we discovered are works by Anne Pratt, one of the few female authors represented in our archive. Pratt was a pioneering Victorian botanical writer whose accessible publications helped introduce the study of plants to a wider audience. Her multi-volume work, The Flowering Plants and Ferns of Great Britain, combines detailed botanical illustrations and descriptions with an accessible approach to the plants around us.
This project has been made possible through the University of Hertfordshire’s Heritage Co-Production Award.
Meet the Researchers
Dr Jennifer Evans
Dr Jennifer Evans is a Reader in Early Modern History within the School of Creative Arts at the University of Hertfordshire. Her research focuses on the reproductive body, medicine and gender during the period 1550–1750. Her work has explored reproductive health, infertility and miscarriage.
Dr Evans completed her PhD at the University of Exeter in 2011, where she also taught for two years before joining the University of Hertfordshire. She is the author of two monographs: Aphrodisiacs, Fertility and Medicine in Early Modern England, published by Boydell & Brewer in 2014, and Men’s Sexual Health in Early Modern England, published by Amsterdam University Press in 2023.
Dr Ceri Houlbrook
Dr Ceri Houlbrook is a Lecturer in History and Folklore at the University of Hertfordshire. Her primary research interests are the heritage and material culture of ritual and folklore in the British Isles, from c.1700 to the present day.
Dr Houlbrook completed her PhD at the University of Manchester in 2014, focusing on the archaeology and heritage of the British coin-tree. She later published this research as the Palgrave Macmillan monograph The Roots of a Ritual: The Magic of Coin-Trees from Religion to Recreation.
The Exhibit
Bringing together historic texts from our archive, botanical art, research by Dr Evans and Dr Houlbrook and stories from plant lore, Plantlore invites you to look more closely at the plants and fungi associated with autumn.
Discover how these species have been recorded, understood and represented across generations and uncover some of the folklore and traditions that have grown around them.
From botanical writing and illustration to stories of ritual, belief and everyday use, the exhibition reveals the many ways people have connected with the plants and fungi growing around them.