Speaking of botanists, a really good candidate would be Marianne North. She travelled the world, especially in the warmer climes, in Victorian times, painting exotic plants in their natural contexts. She was a good friend of Joseph Hooker and she knew Charles Darwin, who encouraged her exploits in Australasia especially. The paintings are lovely and they reveal considerable botanical understanding. There's a lovely book of her travels, containing lots of pages of her paintings, called A Vision Of Eden. I possess a little book of botany by Sir John Lubbock, published in 1875, that Marianne owned. Her name is written on the title page, in her own hand! In Kew Gardens there's a beautiful little gallery containing most of her paintings. They're all displayed cheek by jowel, but that in no way ruins the effect.