Olearia Arguta: Engraving from Joseph Banks' Florilegium

SYDNEY PARKINSON and FREDERICK POLYDORE NODDER (artists)

‘Plate 157. Olearia Arguta, Bentham, Aster acclivis (Compositae)’

London: Alecto Historical Editions in association with the British Museum (Natural History), 1980-1990

Engraving by Daniel MacKenzie, printed à la poupée by Alecto Historical Editions

Limited to 116 impressions, this no. 1 of 3 for exhibition and numbered ‘EP 1/3’



❧ OLEARIA ARGUTA, BENTHAM, ASTER ACCLIVIS (COMPOSITAE)

Species seen at Endeavour River, Australia
17 June – 4 August 1770

Cook’s description of the Endeavour River – very much that of an explorer rather than a botanist – complements Banks’ well: ‘[t]he Country, as far as I could see, is diversified with Hills and plains, and these with woods and Lawns; the Soil of the Hills is hard, dry, and very Stoney; yet it produceth a thin Coarse grass, and some wood. The Soil of the Plains and Valleys are sandy, and in some places Clay, and in many Parts very Rocky and Stoney, as well as the Hills, but in general the Land is pretty well Cloathed with long grass, wood, Shrubs, etc. The whole Country abounds with an immense number of Ant Hills, some of which are 6 or 8 feet high, and more than twice that in Circuit. Here are but few sorts of Trees besides the Gum tree, which is the most numerous, and is the same that we found on the Southern Part of the Coast, only here they do not grow near so large. On each side of the River, all the way up it, are Mangroves, which Extend in some places a Mile from its banks’ (Wharton (ed.), Captain Cook’s Journal, 4 August 1770).

The Olearia Arguta would have been a small but colourful part of this landscape. There are more than 100 species of the small- to medium-sized Olearia shrubs, or ‘daisy-bushes’, found in Australia, New Guinea, and New Zealand today, some of them threatened or on the verge of being extinct.



SPECIFICATIONS

The engravings are all of a very similar size, with platemarks of circa 457 x 305mm, and are printed on acid-free Somerset mould-made 300gsm paper manufactured by the Inveresk Paper Company. Each sheet is watermarked ‘AHE’, measures 724 x 556mm, and bears blind embossed stamps incorporating the publishers’ and printer’s chops, the copyright symbol, and date of publication; the initials of the individual printer, the plate number, and the edition number are recorded in pencil. The engravings are protected by a bifolium of acid-free Somerset mould-made 300gsm paper, cut to form a window mount on which is recorded the modern and Banksian names of the plant, the location and date of its collection and the name(s) of the artist and engraver. 

This print accompanied by a certificate of limitation.


This print is no longer available.




© Type & Forme and Alecto Historical Editions/Trustees of the Natural History Museum 2020