The garden was established in 1673 as the Apothecaries' Garden in London by the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries to grow plants to be used as medicines. Its the second oldest physic garden in the UK. The Chelsea Physic Garden’s plant collection is the only botanic garden collection focused entirely on medicinal, herbal and useful plants. Members of the Florilegium Society record, in paintings and drawings, the 5,000 plant taxa listed as growing in The Chelsea Physic Garden. To date, members have illustrated more than 800 plants, so many still need to be illustrated.

This involves:

• choosing a plant which has not yet been illustrated from the Official Plant List maintained by the gardeners and Gillian Barlow, our Deputy Chair.

• requesting the gardeners, via our Deputy Chair to produce cuttings of a live specimen of a plant from the Garden - and collecting this at one of our regular meetings.

• all active members producing at least one botanical illustration each year. Members may have more than one illustration as a "work in progress" at one time.

• all illustrations are vetted by the independent Judging Panel (Dr Nicholas Hind, Dr Phil Cribb) before being accepted into the Archive.

• donating the artwork to the Chelsea Physic Garden Archive (maintained by CPGFS) - and licensing its use for specific purposes by the CPG to promote awareness of the Florilegium and to raise funds for this charitable endeavour (while artists always retain copyright of the image). 

PLEASE NOTE:

• unlike some other Florilegium Societies, all illustrations must be produced from plant specimens in the Garden as the Florilegium is a record of plants growing in the Chelsea Physic Garden