Joseph Banks’ botanical discoveries – some 1,300 previously unknown botanical species – revolutionised European understanding of natural history.
The ten prints presented in this exhibition show the rich foliage, colourful flowers, and diverse species that Banks discovered as the Endeavour traversed the globe.
Some of the plants would, in time, travel to Europe, and thus form part of our flora today; others have become extinct, meaning that Banks’ specimens and drawings documenting them are especially important; and yet others will be familiar to those who have travelled to the shores on which the Endeavour first visited two-and-a-half centuries ago. Together they form a botanical history of parts of the world that had only been seen by very few, if any, western travellers before.
© Type & Forme and Alecto Historical Editions/Trustees of the Natural History Museum 2020