Beauty + Science, an exhibition of exquisite botanical illustrations and flower paintings, has found an ideal Lake District venue at the Armitt Museum, Gallery and Library in Ambleside, writes Jane Renouf.

Natural history studies and botanical art lay at the heart of the Armitt's founding collection almost a century ago, and the Armitt sisters would surely have been delighted to see this exhibition of 63 works by 30 members of the Birmingham Society of Botanical Artists, which was opened on Sunday by the society's chairman, Jane Edwards.

The society was founded in Birmingham only six years ago by students who had recently gained a Certificate of Higher Education in Botanical Illustration, to keep up their skills in the ancient tradition of depicting and recording plant life.

Their society is based at Winterbourne, a fine Edwardian Arts and Crafts house and garden in Birmingham, built in 1903 by the Nettlefold family. Winterbourne was left to Birmingham University in 1944 and its botanic garden, which boasts more than 2,000 species, opened to the public in 1998 as a focus for teaching subjects including horticulture, woodcarving and botanical illustration.

The society's membership has grown from 16 to 65, none of whom had formal art training. The group, all women, now work as teachers, horticulturists, designers and commercial growers and their paintings, available for sale, range from works of extraordinary scientific detail, to those more generally concerned with the aesthetic.

What separates a botanical illustration from an expressive flower painting is hard to define, though some works are clearly both. On one thing, however, members are unanimous - that even with today's most sophisticated photographic technology, when it comes to recording what is there, nothing beats the naked eye, a sketchbook and a pencil - which would surely gladden the hearts of the Armitt sisters and Beatrix Potter.

The exhibition runs until May.