Lara Call Gastinger

Lara Call Gastinger is an artist and botanical illustrator from Charlottesville, Virginia, and was the chief illustrator of Flora of Virginia, a botanical reference. She has been awarded two gold medals (2007, 2018) at the Royal Horticultural Society Botanical Art Show in London, and her work is in the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation at Carnegie Mellon University. 

For this project, Gastinger created a pen drawing of the tulip poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera) that grew at Monticello. Using photos and her familiarity with this species, having grown up in the Eastern forest ecosystem, she drew the trunk, branches, and leaves. She also included small characteristic details associated with tulip poplars, such as the flower, fruits, samaras, leaves, and twigs.