Springtime in New York. (Current and Coming).(Plants and Garden's Portrayed: Rare and Illustrated Books from the LuEsther T. Mertz Library)(Brief Article)

When spring is in full flower in New York City the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx is at its best. The formal and woodland gardens are a calm oasis, seemingly far from the bustling city. Less well known than the gardens is the institution's leading role as this country's epicenter for plant research, which makes it a mecca for those interested in botanical studies.

On May 2 the botanical garden opens its new International Plant Science Center. This large project includes n new facility for the garden's William and Lynda Steere Herbarium, which is the largest plant research collection in the Western Hemisphere; the renovated and expanded LuEsther T. Mertz Library; and the new William D. Rondina and Giovanni Foroni LoFaro Library Exhibition Gallery. The renovation and expansion were carried out by Polshek Partnership Architects, and the designer for the exhibition gallery is Stephen Saitas Designs. The restoration architect for the exterior of the Mertz Library is Cabrera Barricklo Architects.

Scholars have long known about the extraordinary holdings of the library which was founded in 1899. The library building was designed by Robert Williams Gibson and completed in 1901. The inaugural show for the new exhibition gallery is entitled Plants and Garden's Portrayed: Rare and Illustrated Books from the LuEsther T. Mertz Library and may be seen until July 31. More than 60 works are on view, drawn from the collection of some 775,000 printed and non-printed works in thirty languages and ranging in date from 1190 to 1884. In addition, the library houses more than a mile of archival materials.

The exhibition begins with the Italian manuscript Circa Instans, which dates to 1190 and is the earliest known document in which a scholar attempted to establish a standard for plant names. The manuscript is attributed to the teaching physician Matthaeus Platearius, who was affiliated with the School of Medicine in Salerno, Italy, then Europe's premier medical institution. It delineates formulas for medicines and identifies the plant, animal, and mineral ingredients needed to concoct them. Representing another milestone in this section of the exhibition is a copy of Hye nach volget das Puch der Natur by Konrad von Megenberg, ...