Artists who make pictures of plants are known as botanical illustrators. Today, some may see such a job as something people only did hundreds of years ago. But people who make detailed drawings and watercolor paintings of garden plants are still at work today. And, art experts say there is nothing old-fashioned about botanical illustrations. “There’s a great admiration now for realistic drawings and observing nature,” says Femke Speelberg. She is with the department of drawings and prints at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Helen Bynum and her husband put together the book “Botanical Sketchbooks.” It was published in 2017. She said that as the Earth loses biodiversity, botanical drawing is an important way to examine and document plants that might disappear.