florilegium

noun /ˌflɔɹəˈliːdʒi.əm/

1. A collection of flowers.

   Rich owners of private gardens commissioned large-format florilegiums to immortalize their personal taste and power of acquisition, and the drawn pages burned with the urgency and excitement of explaining every plant’s form, color, and beauty.

2. An anthology, particularly of excerpts from larger works.

3. A patristic anthology.

Where it comes from

Borrowed from Renaissance Latin flōrilegium, calque of Ancient Greek ἀνθολογία (anthología, “flower-gathering”) (compare English anthology), so called because flowers were used as symbols of the finer sensibility of literature.

Adapted from the Wiktionary entry florilegium (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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