The book is structured around a visual analysis of twenty-four common plant forms. For each Grasset offers a naturalistic study (albeit in his pared down style) followed by two plates depicting progressively more abstracted adaptations of the plant's form in decorative designs, as well showing them in the context of their potential use, from stained glass to furniture to vases to lace. The stunning images were executed in colour lithography which required several runs through the printing press, one for each colour, to carefully build the final multicolor print. Although Grasset's name is in lights, the drawings and lithographs were actually executed by his students, including several by Maurice Pillard Verneuil (1869-1942), who himself went on to publish his own influential ornamental pattern books.