nabokovsnotebook:

I’m spending the weekend in Chautauqua, NY, enjoying the company of Martin Espada, Valerie Boyd, and about 70 other writers, poets, and journalists. My double life as a botany student has been a fun topic of conversation for me, and tonight the (fantastic) poet Judith Vollmer brought up Emily Dickinson’s childhood obsession with studying plant forms and building an herbarium to hold them. At 14 years old, Dickinson began meticulously cataloguing botanical specimens, and the collection is one of Harvard library’s prized possessions. 

(Top image from New York Times)