A digital collection of over a thousand photographs of trees, flowers, mosses, ferns and other plants is now available on the University of Tennessee Libraries’ website.

THE BOTANICAL PHOTOGRAPHY OF ALAN S. HEILMAN was digitized from color-film photographs taken over more than sixty years by Alan S. Heilman, retired professor of Botany at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Many photographs are of wild flowers in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, made over the course of Heilman’s 37-year career as a botanist at UT. A lifelong student of plant anatomy, he is known for his novel views and close-up shots, some made through a microscope. In 1996 Heilman’s photograph of the back of a sunflower won first prize in the nationwide Natural World Photographic Competition of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

The UT Libraries will unveil THE BOTANICAL PHOTOGRAPHY OF ALAN S. HEILMAN at a celebration on the evening of Tuesday, September 13, 2011. The public is invited to a reception beginning at 6:30 p.m. in the Jack E. Reese Galleria of the John C. Hodges Library, 1015 Volunteer Blvd. Remarks by Alan S. Heilman and others will take place at 7 p.m. Images from the collection will be on display.

The University of Tennessee Libraries digitizes unique local content and makes these collections available for research and teaching through its website at www.lib.utk.edu/digitalcollections. Images from THE BOTANICAL PHOTOGRAPHY OF ALAN S. HEILMAN are freely available for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons License.