Artist Belinda Tartaglia was intrigued the first time she saw an advertisement for the Bermuda Botanical Society.

“I love plants,” she said. “I see the word ‘botanical’ and I get excited. However, as much as I love gardening, I love painting plants even more.”

She was a little fuzzy on what the BBS did, but went to their annual general meeting anyway.

“I thought there had to be some artists involved,” she said.

The tone at that first meeting was more serious than she expected.

The mission of the group is to promote the study of botanical sciences in Bermuda.

She joined anyway; she attended her second annual general meeting last November.

“As they were talking, I was thinking there must be an art show in this somewhere,” said Ms Tartaglia, a former art gallery owner.

Afterwards, she reached out to BBS and suggested an art show to raise the profile of the organisation and raise funds for it.

BBS president Jennifer Flood thought it was a great idea. She and other members have been working to build awareness of BBS and its projects for some time.

“That is why it is great to get new members,” she said. “We had never thought of doing something like an art show before.”

“It snowballed from there,” Ms Tartaglia said.

Bermuda Botanical Treasures opened on Thursday at the Bermuda Society of Arts at City Hall in Hamilton, with the theme of celebrating botanical elements, vegetation and natural scenery.

The show is a combination of veteran creators such as Vaughn Evans and Sheilagh Head and newcomers to the art scene, such as Peter Lee, the vice-president of BBS.

He has one of his plant photographs in the show.

“It feels great to collaborate with artists who have an appreciation for plants and the environment,” Me Lee said.

He is a horticulturalist and owns Abundance Horticultural Services.

Ms Tartaglia wanted the show to be an opportunity for emerging artists.

“I have reached out to a lot of artists who did not even know that the BBS existed,” she said. “There are a lot of artists in the show who have been quietly doing things in their own homes. This is giving them their first little platform.”

Ultimately, Ms Tartaglia said the show was about fun and plants.

It includes paintings, drawings and photographs.

Since forming in 1985, the BBS has had its ups and downs. Things were bad after it ceased to operate the Visitor Service Centre in the Botanical Gardens in Paget.

The building fell into disrepair and BBS membership plummeted.

In 2016, the organisation warned of possible closure if they did not get more interest, and funding, from the public.

Member Jennifer Flood and several others were determined to make it blossom again.

“I took on the role of president about six years ago,” Ms Flood said. “Membership is still pretty small but we now have a schools award and a botanical sciences award.”

Ms Flood frequently meets people who have never heard of the BBS.

“This is reaching out to another group of people,” she said. “We are really looking at meeting people where they are and drawing them in from there. Art is a brilliant way to do it.”

They have also been concerned about what they see as the deteriorating state of the Botanical Gardens and are working to bring it back to its former glory.

Ms Flood explained that the gardens lost their accreditation due to a few years of mismanagement.

“There is very serious classification needed to bring that back,” Ms Flood said.

The BBS is helping Danny Simmons, the Government’s landscape architect, to get that back.

Last November, Lieutenant-Colonel David Burch, then Minister of Public Works, signed a memorandum of understanding with the BBS to invest in the future of the Botanical Gardens.

The MOU established the BBS as the Botanical Gardens’ registered charity, allowing it to raise money for the attraction and modernising its funding model.

Ms Flood said plants were not as cute as a furry creature but were still critical to the ecosystem.

She said: “Plants are pretty amazing. Once you start looking at plants you see what survivors they are. They were here millions of years before us. They provide us with shelter, food and oxygen. They also help with rain cycles.”

She is concerned by the number of plants becoming extinct. According to the 2020 State of the World Plants and Fungi report, 39.4 per cent of the world’s plants are threatened with extinction.

“Studies have found that people who have access to nature do better than those who do not,” she said. “Other studies have found that people recovering from surgery do better, even if they can only look out over natural surroundings. Just looking at plants can help lower people’s stress levels. That is why an art show like this is important.”

The show will run at the BSoA until July 22.

• For more information about the Bermuda Botanical Society, visit bermudabotanicalsociety.org