Papyrus reeds growing at the University of Michigan Botanical Gardens

The papyrus plant grows wild in Egypt in the marshes along the Nile river. In the ancient world, paper was made exclusively from high-quality papyrus grown on plantations. As a result, modern papyrus, which is made from wild plants, is of a lower quality than ancient papyrus.

Use the arrows to the left and right of the image to navigate through the slide show.