“The gentian is a greedy flower,” Emily Dickinson wrote to a friend in the autumn of 1859, “and overtakes us all. Indeed, this world is short, and I wish, until I tremble, to touch the ones I love before the hills are red—are gray—are white—are ‘born again’!” Flowers lace the landscape of Dickinson’s poetry. Botany was one of the rare scientific outlets for women in the 19th century, and Dickinson was versed in the scientific as well as the romantic …