From the cataloguing notes for ‘The Floral Birthday Book: Flowers and their Emblems‘ :

This charming book aided its owner in remembering the birthdays of friends and acquaintances. The printed calendar, which assigns a plant to each day of the year, lists an associated quality, and presents a short poem, was interleaved with blank lined pages providing a place to to record names adjacent to each day of the year.

Additional pages of this small volume reveal names written in multiple hands, suggesting that it functioned as both a memory aid and an autograph book for its owner – a place to collect the signatures of their beloved. The printer Edmund Evans became known for exactly this sort of inclusion of vivid colour printing within an intricate page layout, which would have been something of a novelty at the time. 

Birthday calendar, first page with inscription on facing page

You can find out more about ‘Sentimental botany‘ in the digital exhibition ‘Interpersonal Botany: Interactions between people, print and botany 1700-1900‘ which was organized by McGill’s Interacting with Print research group and the Rare Books & Special Collections.