INTRODUCTION 
The engravings made from the drawings, so far as they were known, were highly esteemed, Thus Pritzel, 
who by a curious blunder attributes them to Franz Bauer, refers to twenty-eight of the engravings which form a 
folio volume in the Berlin Library* as “tabule cri insculpte absque inscriptione inter omnes summi artificis facile 
pulcherrimz.” Most of the proofs bear no engraver’s name; some, however, are signed “D. McKenzie,” who 
probably did most of the work, and others “G. Sibelius.” The former, although he does not appear in any 
dictionary of artists, was eminent in his day: he engraved twenty-seven of the thirty plates of Erica by Franz 
Bauer which formed the Defineation of Exotic Plants cultivated in the Royal Gardens at Kew (1793-1802) and the 
botanical plates in Syme’s Embassy to Ava (1800), and was employed by the Linnean Society; he died in or 
about 1800. A few of the plates bear the names of Goldar, Robert Blyth, G. Smith, and White as engravers, 
It will be observed that the names of species which have been adopted by various authors from Solander’s 
MSS. are throughout the present work attributed to Banks and Solander, although in many instances Solander 
alone was originally quoted for them. A careful study of the various memoranda and MSS. preserved in the 
Department of Botany makes it clear that Banks, who had come to be regarded as a patron of science rather than 
as a man of scientific attainments, had much more botanical knowledge than was at one time supposed. This seems to 
have been recognized by his contemporaries; thus Smith speaks of what are generally called the Solander MSS. as the 
work of Banks and Solander,} and Patrick Russell says that the catalogue of plants in the second edition of the 
Natural Flistory of Aleppot was drawn up by Banks and Solander, although it has been customary to attribute the 
new species therein described to Solander only. 
* “Tiber emtus est Londini ex bibliotheca Fieldiana.” t Rees Cyclop. v. Jasminum. t-Pref.sepiaviiis 
Department of Botany. JAMES BRITTEN. 
1st December, 1904. 
