Auricula collections were traditionally displayed on specially constructed staging, called theaters. Lady Salisbury, whose drawing for the New York Botanical Garden Auricula Theater is shown here, was the chatelaine of historic Hatfield House (hatfield-house.co.uk), and is a prominent figure in English garden history circles. She's done much to promote our knowledge of early English gardens, which helps us to understand the early history of our own gardening past. The Elizabethan knot gardens at Hatfield House were reconstructed following her research and planted with the flowers and herbs that would have been grown there in the 17th century, during the lifetime of Robert Cecil, who established the Salisbury earldom at Hatfield House. He was the patron of John Tradescant the renowned plantsman of the English Renaissance period, who helped to introduce and popularize many plant introductions from the New World colonies, thereby enlarging the plant palette of the English garden. So there is a poetic symmetry to the reintroduction of the auricula to American gardens by Lady Salsibury and the NYBG.

Photograph courtesy of the New York Botanical Garden