Before there were sundials and the Roman clock, our ancestors looked to nature and the moving shadows to keep track of time.

Carl Linnaeus was a pivotal eighteenth-century biologist, best known for devising the taxonomic naming system in which all species are classified under to this day. Like many academics of the time, Linnaeus had a wandering imagination, and for a personal project he devised a plan to plant a garden where new flowers would bloom chronologically with each passing hour.

As he saw it, one could tell the time by simply walking into the flower clock garden, then smelling and seeing which flowers had most recently opened. Sadly, the flower clock never came to fruition, and given limited access to global horticulture at the time, there were flowers missing from his research. Eight of Linnaeus’ original flowers are incorporated into Flowers of Time, with the remaining hours filled in with more recent discoveries of chronobiological flowers.

Digital square scarf illustration of a large blue flower clock with animals sitting in each corner.
Textile design of a blue hermit crab next to a flower on the corner of silk scarf design.
Flowers of Time · Sapphire
Digital illustration of a fine art square scarf featuring flowers, animals, clock details and moons.
Digital illustration of a snake holding a Faberge egg in red, green and brown colours.
Flowers of Time · Emerald
Digital illustration of silk scarf in a bold red colourway featuring a bird, cat, crab and snake.
Illustration of a Lady Amherst pheasant next to blooming flowers in red, purple and pink colours.
Flowers of Time · Ruby
Photograph of a blue silk scarf depicting an ocelot and flowers.