The Art of the Botanist 3. Illustrated printed books and modern botanical artists

Classes of books Illustrated printed botanical books fall into a variety of categories: Floras (for example Flora Londinensis, Flora Danica, Flora Graeca) Monographs (for example, Sweet’s Geraniaceae, The Rhododendrons of Sikkim-Himalaya) Magazines (for example Curtis’s Botanical Magazine, Edwards’Botanical Register) Large-scale illustrated works (for example, Temple of Flora) Nature-printed works (for example, Seaweeds, Ferns) Horticultural (for example, Hortus Eysettensis)

Flora Londinensis (William Curtis, 1777)

Flora Londinensis

Flora Danica (begun in 1761)

Flora Danica

Flora Graeca Project of John Sibthorp (Professor of Botany at Oxford) and Ferdinand Bauer (Botanical Illustrator). Surveyed from March 1786 to December 1787 to study plants mentioned by Dioscorides; Sipthorp died in 1796 and the work was eventually published in seven volumes between 1806 and 1840.

Flora Graeca

Robert Sweet (1822):Geraniaceae: the natural order of gerania

Sweet’s Geraniaceae

The Rhododendrons of Sikkim-Himalaya

Joseph Hooker ( ) with illustrations by W H Fitch, printed by Reeve & Nichols.

The Rhododendrons of Sikkim-Himalaya

Curtis’s Botanical Magazine (1787 to date)

Curtis’s Botanical Magazine

Botanical Register ( : Sydenham Edwards – who left CBM after a dispute)

Botanical Register

Thornton’s Temple of Flora ( )

Thornton’s Temple of Flora

Thornton’ Temple of Flora and Ann Fraser’s homage thereto

Nature-Printed British Seaweeds

Nature-Printed British Ferns

Hortus Eysettensis by Basilius Besler Published in 1613 for the Prince Bishop of Eichstatt in Germany to record for posterity the spectacular garden he had created in his palace at Willibaldsburg in Bavaria with plants from around the world. Sadly, the bishop did not live to see the book – he died the year before it was published. The garden was begun in 1596 to designs by Joachim Camerarius, a physician and botanist, and is composed of eight terraced gardens on a hillside, each containing plants from a different country.

Hortus Eysettensis

Marianne North ( )

Marianne North

Sally Crosthwaite

Ann Fraser

Mary Grierson

Christabel King

Rory McEwan

Margaret Mee

Valerie Price

Pandora Sellars

Margaret Stones