Amazing Free Collection Of Antique Botanical Posters

I love vintage natural history posters that show collections of things like feathers, seashells and insects. In the past, I have shared the fabulous natural history posters of Adolphe Millot and his animal poster collections. Here I have compiled a collection of Adolphe’s antique botanical posters.

Adolphe Millot was a French painter and entomologist and the senior illustrator at Muséum national d’histoire naturelle in Paris. He is well known for his fabulous natural history and botanical posters. He painted these posters for the Le Petit Larousse Illustré, a French-language encyclopedic dictionary published by Éditions Larousse.

Downloadable Antique Botanical Poster Collection

You probably recognize many of Adolphe Millot’s natural history and botanical posters. The prints have been used widely for interiors and gifts. They have appeared on anything from paper napkins to bags and pillows. Cavallini uses a lot of Adolphe Millot’s prints with their wrapping paper and products.

The good news, these botanical posters are in the public domain and copyright free. Here I’ve curated a collection which you are free to download and use how you like.

For this collection, I have just focused on both the collections of mushroom and floral posters of Adolphe Millot. I have included a poster he painted of aquatic plants and seaweed too. You can find his botanical fruit and vegetable posters here. There are also some wonderful free Tree posters from Larousse.

Just click on the title of the botanical poster you would like to download. A larger image of that poster will open as a new tab in your browser. If you right click your mouse you will have the option to save that larger image to your device.

The Vintage Botanical Illustration Posters

1. Champignons – Mushrooms

Neither meat or vegetable, however, mushrooms are known as the meat of the vegetable world. “Many species of mushrooms seemingly appear overnight, growing or expanding rapidly. This phenomenon is the source of several common expressions in the English language including “to mushroom” or “mushrooming” (expanding rapidly in size or scope) and “to pop up like a mushroom” (to appear unexpectedly and quickly)”.

A lovely identification botanical poster of over 40 mushrooms, toadstools, fungi and truffles. There is a handy key at the bottom indicating whether the mushroom illustrations in the poster are either consumable, poisonous, indifferent or suspect ( comestible, vénéneux, indifférent, suspect.)

2. Champig n ons Mushrooms 2

A second collection of Champignons painted by Adolphe Millot.

3. Champignons 3

A third mushroom, fungi collection by Adolphe.

Visit here for more mushroom and fungi charts.

Champignon B Adolphe Millot Botanical poster

4. Fleurs – Flowers A.

The first of four flower botanical posters by Adolphe Millot. This one identifies over 60 “Plantes annuelles et plantes bisannuelles” (annuals and biennials).

Annual plants complete their growing season in one year from germination to the production of seeds before dying. Whereas the biennial plant takes two years to complete its growing life cycle.

There is a key in French at the bottom of the poster identifying over 60 common flowers. From, tulips, anemones, dahlias, amaryllis, foxgloves, poppies and many more.