Introduction. Botanising Women : Transmission, Translation and European Exchange

The papers published in this special themed issue of the Journal of Literature and Science on women and botany are part of a project which developed from a panel at the 2009 British Society for Literature and Science conference. Our title, Botanising Women: Transmission, Translation and European Exchange, illustrates the project’s overall themes: the circulation of European ideas (notably Linnaeanism and Rousseauism) by women, inside and outside the botanical text, the transmission of botanical knowledge, through an exchange of plants and specimens and through the familiar format of letters and dialogue), and the exchange of ideas around gender and natural science, both culturally and in terms of translation