INTRODUCTION 
plants there are 44 finished drawings and 72 sketches: in a few cases there are both sketch and finished drawing 
of the same plant. On the back of each finished drawing are pencil notes by Parkinson, indicating the colour of 
the leaves, flowers, etc., and the locality is added in Banks’s hand. The finished drawings (other than Parkinson’s), 
from which the engravings were prepared, were made by well-known artists of the period —John Cleveley, John 
Frederick Miller and his brother James, Frederick Polydore Nodder, and Thomas Burgis (only three) — during 
the years 1773-1781. J. F. Miller went with Banks in the capacity of draughtsman on his voyage to Iceland 
in 1772, and was engaged in the same capacity for Cook’s second voyage when it was supposed that Banks 
would accompany it. The artists occasionally supplemented the sketches by reference to the specimens, and 
sometimes made slight alterations which the specimens do not justify; in the main, however, their interpretation is 
accurate: the dissections were also added in some cases. 
The drawings and specimens seem to have been available for reference very shortly after the return of the 
travellers. Thomas Martyn, writing to Pulteney in February, 1772, speaks of having recently “spent a morning 
with Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander, to turn out 3,000 specimens of plants, 1,000 of them new species, and coloured 
drawings of ‘oo, all elegantly and accurately done upon the spot.”* They were also consulted by contemporary 
botanists in connection with their work; thus the drawings of Zéeria and Eriostemon bear these names in the 
handwriting of Smith, who established these genera. A reviewer in Konig and Sims’s 4unals of Botany (ii. 366) speaks 
of the “vast collection of natural productions, and especially of dried plants, with complete descriptions and excellent 
delineations, both made on the spot, [which] opened as it were a new world to the naturalist, and to the botanist in 
particular; for these treasures, so ardently expected, although not as yet committed to the press, have by no means 
been lost to the public, having, by their liberal possessor, been rendered easily accessible to every one desirous of 
informing himself in the natural history of New Holland.” Gaertner, who published many of the Australian novelties 
in his important work De Fructibus et Seminibus Plantarum (1788-1805), continually acknowledges the help he received 
from the Banksian Herbarium and from Solander’s MSS.: M. Deleuze, in his biography of Gaertner, says: “ M. Banks 
communiqua A M. Gaertner tous les fruits qu'il possédoit sans exception; il lui permit non seulement de 
les voir, mais de les couper de les analyser pour en dessiner Tanatomie; il lui donna tous ceux quil avoit 
doubles.” + 
In more recent times the drawings were consulted by Sir Joseph Hooker when preparing his Vora 
Antarctica. He speaks in high terms of the value of the collections of Banks and Solander in New Zealand and 
Tierra del Fuego, and adds: ‘Valuable as the dried plants are their utility is doubly increased by the excellent 
descriptions, and by the beautiful coloured drawings executed on the spot which accompany them and were made at 
Sir Joseph Banks’s own expense.”{ Seemann throughout his Flora Vitiensis (1865-73) refers to the drawings and 
specimens of the plants from the Friendly Islands, and Lowe cites the Madeira collections throughout his Flora of 
Madeira (1857-72). The Trustees of the British Museum gave permission to the New Zealand Government to 
obtain a set of engravings of the New Zealand plants from the copper plates ; these it was proposed to reproduce in a 
reduced form in connection with Kirk’s Student's Flora of New Zealand. The carrying out of this project was 
arrested by the death of the author in 1897, but it is still the intention of the New Zealand Government to 
complete the literary portion of the work and to issue the platés in a separate volume. A list of the Madeira drawings 
will be found in the Journal of Botany, 1904, Pp. 3. i 
It is a matter for regret that Bentham did not consult the drawings when preparing his valuable Flora 
Australiensis. Wis work at the National Herbarium was, however, mainly in connection with the collections made by 
Robert Brown, then the property of Mr. J. J. Bennett, but housed in the Department of Botany by permission of the 
Trustees, to whom they were subsequently bequeathed; and, as the following pages will show, the plants of Banks and 
Solander were to a considerable extent passed over unnoticed. 
The Australasian collections are represented by 412 sketches; from these 362 finished drawings were prepared, of 
which 340 were engraved. From the copper plates of these, the plates illustrating this volume have been lithographed ; 
they represent 328 of the engravings, most of the remainder being unfinished or imperfect representations. Three 
of the drawings of which no plates exist— Tribulus Solandri, Pleiogynium Solandri, and Myrmecodia Beccarii—being 
of special interest, were drawn on stone by the late Robert Morgan, and raise the number of plants represented 
O) Billo 
Of the New Zealand plants there are 173 sketches, 205 finished drawings, and 185 plates; of those of the Friendly 
Islands, 14 sketches, 114 finished drawings, and 88 plates; of those of Tierra del Fuego, 1 sketch, 79 finished 
drawings, and 66 plates ; of those of Brazil, 1 sketch, 37 finished drawings, and 23 plates; of those of Java, 72 
sketches, 44 finished drawings, and 29 plates; of those of Madeira, 2 sketches, 22 finished drawings, and 11 
plates; making a total of 675 sketches, 863 finished drawings, and 742 copper plates, of which 722 are represented in 
the collection of engravings. 
* Gorham, Memoirs of John and Thomas Martyn, 141 (1830). + Ann. Mus. d’Hist. Nat. i. 217 (1802). + Botany of the Antarctic Voyage: Flora Antarctica, ii, 222 (1847). 
§ Sir Joseph Hooker, doubtless writing from imperfect memory, speaks of the Australian plates as “mainly outlines ” (Journal of Sir J. Banks, xxvi.). 
