For the travelers coming to Sicily on the Grand Tour, the encounter with the luxuriant vegetation of the Mediterranean was as aesthetically and emotionally moving as the sight of the classical ruins they had come to view, an encounter that was almost always enhanced by some knowledge of botany and by a thorough education in the classics. The Garlands of the Gods is an attempt to restore the fullness of this 'Sicilian experience' to today's travelers, providing them with historical, botanical and mythological information about Sicily's spectacular wild flowers.

The illustrations are the work of the American botanical artist, Susan Pettee, who lives in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Susan studied botanical painting with Anne-Marie Evans at the English Gardening School in London and received a Certificate in Botanical Painting from the Society of Botanical Artists in England in 2007.

An edition in Italian is scheduled for 2020.

Susan’s paintings, with excerpts from Mary’s texts, were shown at the Palermo Botanical Garden in the winter of 2018-19, and are being purchased by the Garden to become part of its permanent collection.