Images in Hidden Worlds: The New Herbarium were made with material collected from among the Arnold Arboretum’s living collection of more than 17,000 individual plants. Spore print compositions make visible the ancient and intimate collaboration in which “plants and mycorrhizal fungi enact a collective flourishing that underpins our past, present, and future” (Sheldrake). Like all herbaria, each image represents a slice of time and place. Leaf shapes reference our dependence on the process of photosynthesis as well as the ways that plants protect birds, bees, and other life forms. The dusty spores conjure fungi’s powers, honed over eons, to pave the way for plant life, to heal and nourish us, and, in some cases, to blow our minds.
