From Divine Design to Darwin: Hunt Institute Exhibition Traces Centuries-Long Journey to Understanding Pollination

In 1722, a Scottish gardener named Philip Miller made a shocking claim: bees were deliberately carrying pollen between flowers to help plants reproduce. The idea was so controversial that his own publisher deleted it from later editions of his book. Today, we teach this "scandalous" concept to elementary school students as a basic fact of nature.

Carnegie Mellon University’s Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation explores this evolution of human understanding in "To Make a Prairie: Pollination and Human Understanding," running March 17 through June 30. Drawing its title from Emily Dickinson's observation that "To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee," the exhibition reveals how centuries of curiosity, observation, and debate transformed isolated discoveries into scientific consensus.

"I am always fascinated by the points at which observations that seem so obvious to us now were documented and thought of as groundbreaking and controversial," said Carrie Roy, Senior Curator of Art & Research Scholar at the Hunt Institute.

The exhibition traces a timeline of discovery, beginning with Maria Sibylla Merian's groundbreaking 1679 publications depicting insects on host plants. While Merian recognized these relationships as deliberate, her observations were one-sided, focused solely on the insects' benefit. It wasn't until 1722 that Scottish gardener Philip Miller described the other half of the equation: bees visiting his tulips were carrying pollen to other flowers, pollinating them in what he argued was a divine mechanism created to help plants reproduce.

Miller's theory proved too scandalous for 18th-century British audiences. His own publisher removed the anecdote from later editions of his work. It would take decades, and new technologies, for the scientific community to accept what Miller's garden had shown him.

The advancement of microscope technology in the 17th century was transformative. Nehemiah Grew, an early advocate for microscopic study, discovered that pollen grains differ in shape and size among species but remain consistent within them. The exhibition features a plate from his 1682 compilation "The Anatomy of Plants," showing magnified views of dissected plants that reveal the internal structures essential to pollination.

The exhibition brings together rare books, historical illustrations, and real plant and insect specimens borrowed from the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. These objects tell the story of how our understanding grew over time. One highlight is a fold-out engraving from "Sponsalia Plantarum" (Nuptials of Flowers), published in 1746. Drawn by Carl Linnaeus, one of the most important botanists in history, it depicts wind as a person blowing pollen across flowers. At the time, even Linnaeus didn't fully understand how pollination worked. He thought wind was the main way pollen spread, not realizing how important insects were to the process. The drawing demonstrates that scientific understanding develops slowly, even for experts. 

But perhaps no items in the exhibition tell the story of scientific revelation more dramatically than two specimens borrowed from the Carnegie Museum of Natural History: an orchid, Angraecum sesquipedale, and a moth, Xanthopan morganii. Together, they illustrate Charles Darwin's theory of coevolution. 

Darwin studied the African orchid's exceptionally long nectar tube and predicted that a moth with a tongue-like tube long enough to reach the nectar must exist, a creature perfectly evolved to pollinate this specific flower. The eventual discovery of just such a moth proved that plants and pollinators depend on each other. For Roy, obtaining these specimens was the spark that transformed interesting research into a compelling exhibition.

"Learning that the Carnegie Museum of Natural History had a specimen of this orchid that I could have access to for an exhibition really lit a fire for me and made me feel like this story could be told through our collections in an exciting way," Roy said.

The exhibition also features contemporary botanical art, including a watercolor on vellum by Rose Marie James depicting Balloon Cotton Bush with a monarch butterfly and caterpillar, and John Cody's 1992 watercolor of an African Moon Moth on Flame vine. These modern works demonstrate how artists continue to document and celebrate pollinator relationships today.

The Hunt Institute's unique position as a repository for the history of plant science makes it one of the few places in the world where this story can be told so comprehensively. "We have the artwork and the books where these discoveries were published, that were how these discoveries were being shared with the world at the time they were being made, and it's all within our collections already," Roy said. The collaboration with the Carnegie Museum of Natural History allows the exhibition to ground historical illustrations in physical reality.

The exhibition reminds visitors that our understanding of pollination remains incomplete. New discoveries continue to expand our knowledge of the intricate networks connecting flora and fauna.

"I hope visitors take away an appreciation for the process of knowledge-building; that concepts that seem so simple to us today are the product of many small discoveries over long periods of time, building upon each other over and over forever," Roy said. "We are still learning so much about the relationships between plants and animals, there is so much more to understand, and each of those little revelations is a piece of a larger puzzle requiring many more little discoveries be made before we understand the picture we are creating."

The exhibition will be on display on the fifth floor of Hunt Library and will be open to the public free of charge, Tuesday–Friday, 9 a.m.–noon and 1 p.m.–5 p.m. Because hours of operation are occasionally subject to change, visitors are encouraged to call 412-268-2434 before visiting.

African Moon Moth, Argema mimosae (on Flame vine, Pyrostegia venusta) [Pyrostegia venusta (Ker Gawler) Miers, Bignoniaceae], watercolor on watercolor board by John Cody (1925–2016), 1992, 55.5 × 76 cm, HI Art accession no. 7807, reproduced by permission of the estate of the artist.

Image 2: Amor Unit Plantas, copperplate engraving by Alexander Kastman (Castman, 1723–1782) after an original by Carolus Linnaeus (Carl von Linné, 1707–1778, praeses) for his, Sponsalia Plantarum... (Stockholm, Typis Laurentii Salvii, 1746), Linnaean Dissertations, Lidén no. 12, Strandell Collection of Linnaeana, HI Library call no. DE1 L758DISS L.12 STR.