A Florilegium is a collection of flower illustrations.
The word is Latin and the plural is Florilegia.
A number of florilegia have been produced in the past and continue to be made today.
A Flora is a botanical record of the plants
associated with a defined geographical area
whether that place be a country, region or habitat
This is very often illustrated. Floras are being produced today and will continue to be produced into the future.
This is a big topic and this page will grow over time as more information about different Florilegia and Flora are added.
Suggestions for additions and associated material online is most welcome.

Florilegia and Flora
​

Florilegia and Flora which are completed and PUBLISHED projects have been separated into three categories for:

GARDENS
​Records of a Garden
​

Hortus Eystettensis of Basilius Besler (see the image in the header)

The Flower Book of Alexander Marshall
​
The Highgrove Florilegium for the Prince of Wales

The Florilegium of the Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust (Sydney)

PLACES:
​ECOLOGY / HABITAT
Plant records of known Areas
​

Liber Regni Vegetabilis - the Codex Liechtenstein (Austria and Moravia)

Flora Londinensis (London)

Ferdinand Bauer's Flora Graeca (Greece)

The Transylvania Florilegium for the Prince of Wales
​

PLACES: EXPLORATION:
​Voyages of Discovery
​

Banks' Florilegium (covering Madeira, Brazil, Tierra del Fuego, the Society Islands, New Zealand, Australia and Java)

Ferdinand Bauer's Illustrationes Florae Novae Hollandiae (1813) (Australia a.k.a. New Holland)
Current Florilegium Projects 

These are typically projects initiated by Botanical Art Societies and  can typically be found around the world in Botanical Gardens and other horticultural spaces. Plus other specific projects initiated by individuals (e.g. the Prince of Wales is associated with a second Florilegium project - this one in Europe). 
  • UK: Bedgebury Pinetum (Kent), Eden Project (Cornwall), Hampton Court Palace, Sheffield Botanic Gardens
  • Europe: The Transylvania Florilegium Project
  • USA: Brooklyn, California - Filoli and Alcatraz; The Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden; Brooklyn Botanic Garden PLUS The Flora of North America (FNA)
  • Australia: Sydney Botanic Gardens

The link (in the title) goes to the webpage which provides details about the various Florilegium Groups and Societies.

The words 'Florilegium' and 'Flora'
​

Use of the term 'Florilegium'

The term florilegium is thought to have been first employed by Adriaen Collaert (1560-1618) in his work simply entitled ‘Florilegium’ published in 1590.

​Historically and contemporaneously, the word 'florilegium' relates to a collection of illustrations recording plants in a specific garden. Florilegia have been and are most often commissioned to record the plants belonging to a wealthy person or a botanic garden

The term has also also used to describe the collections of drawings and paintings of:
  • Either plants found in a known geographical area. (The botanical equivalent of this is the Flora - with a capital F)
  • Or  recording the plants found on voyages of discovery - which might cover several different countries and ecosystems

The word 'florilegium' is pronounced 'flori-lee-jum'.

Origin of the word Florilegium
​

It comes from two Latin words:
  • flos (flower) or flores (flowers) and 
  • legere (to gather or collect)
Its literal meaning is "a gathering of flowers". 

Use of the term 'Flora'
​

A Flora is a book or other resource detailing the plants of a particular country, region or habitat. 
Martin Cheek, botanist at Kew
Flora is used as a term to describe a group of plants associated with a
REFERENCE:
In terms of scientific prestige, writing Flora accounts, although challenging and laborious, scores very low. Floras are not rated as peer-reviewed scientific journal publications, so do not figure on any science citation index. Yet Floras are fundamental to identifying plant species in the areas that they cover. Unlike briefly sensational scientific papers that can be superseded in days or months, Floras remain in daily use for decades. They are the final word in resolving long-running uncertainties and disputes as to which plant name belongs to which plant species
​Martin Cheek, botanist at Kew
Picture
Folio 9 from the Florilegium produced by Emanuel Sweerts, Frankfurt am Main, 1612. (Source: Wikimedia Commons | Florilegium)

GARDENS: The Garden Florilegium
​

Below are details of some of the florilegium related to gardens in the past.
In the present day, a number of Florilegium Societies have been developed to document modern day gardens around the world. 

You can see a list of the current Florilegium Societies on this website. 

Hortus Eystettensis of Basilius Besler 
​

The name Hortus Eystettensis means "The Garden of Eichstätt" in Latin. This florilegium contains 367 engraved plates depicting more than 100 flowers and provided a catalogue of the rare specimens growing in the spectacular gardens created in Bavaria by Prince-Bishop Johann Konrad von Gemmingen of Eichstätt.

In 1611, the Prince Bishop of Eichsttt in Germany was already terminally ill when he determined to record for posterity the spectacular garden he'd created at his palace in Bavaria with plants from around the world. Hundreds of his favourite flower

One of the unique features of the book is that the plants are presented according to the seasons.

The first print run was 300 copies which all sold within 4 years.
​
REFERENCE:
Picture
Caltha palustris flore by Basilius Besler. Hand colored print. From 'Hortus Eystettensis' (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Hortus Nitidissimis

The Hortus Nitidissimis was a collaboration between the artist Georg Dionysius Ehret and the learned doctor and amateur horticulturalist Christoph Jacob Trew. Originally published somewhat erratically between 1750 and 1786 as a periodical - with gaps between images and associated text. It was intended, when collected, to form a superlative collection of botanical prints

However it is rarely found complete. A project between the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew and the Natural History Museum, with funding by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, created a compilation of this book.
Picture
Hortus Nitidissimis Omnem Per Annum Superbiens Floribus. Nuremberg: Johann Joseph Fleischmann, 1750

The Flower Book of Alexander Marshal
​

Alexander Marshal (b? 1620 - d.1682) spent 30 years developing a book of flowers (a florilegium). He created 159 folios recording plants growing in English gardens and captured, for example, plants growing in orangeries. It was the first book to be created for personal enjoyment and private study.

​It's particularly important now as it's the only surviving book about flowers from the seventeenth century. Interestingly it's also a record of Marshal's experiments with the extraction of pigments to create paints.

He 'painted for his amusement', maintained two gardens and knew the Tradescants and other great gardeners. The inclusion of insects in his paintings also indicates his other great interest as an entomologist.

He had earlier completed a florilegium of the plants in Tradescant's Garden in Lambeth which is now lost. It's thought that some of the watercolours at the end of Marshal's Flower Book may indicate some of the work that Marshal did in relation to Tradescant's Garden.

The 159 folios portray some 600 native and exotic plants growing in England at the time. They are arranged according to season.

REFERENCE
Picture
Seville orange, purple crocuses, grass snake and goat moth caterpillar - one of the folios in Alexnader Marshall's Florilegium
The Florilegium of Alexander Marshal at Windsor Castle
by Prudence Leith Ross

This is the only known example of a flower book painted by an English artist in the seventeenth century.

The collection of Natural History Drawings kept at Windsor Castle includes the Florilegium of Alexander Marshal presented to King George IV.  ​​

This book is a work of scholarship and is the principal source of reference for information about Alexander Marshall.
The gardens it relates to are those of Alexander Marshal and those he worked in as a 'florist' (flower-grower).

​This book provides:
  • an illustrated catalogue of the book
  • a history of how it came about - which provides a fascinating account 17th century gardens
  • full-page colour plates of the 159 folios of watercolour paintings of more than 600 plants and wildlife
  • narrative identifying the plants in each folio
  • detailed commentary on specific plants in relation to names or origins

A smaller 'sampler' version of this book was published to coincide with the exhibition Amazing Rare Things: The Art of Natural History in the Age of Discovery at The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace in 2008.
​THIS IS A BIG BOOK
​Hardcover: 368 pages
Publisher: Royal Collection Trust
Publication date: 2 May 2000

Average Customer Rating out of 5 stars:
  • in UK:  5.0 based on 1 customer review
  • in USA: 5.0 based on 1 customer reviews​
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The Highgrove Florilegium
​

Picture
The Highgrove Florilegium - open at the image of the Magnolia grandiflora painted by Jenny Phillips (courtesy of Addison Publications)
This is a contemporary Florilegium of the garden at Highgrove, the home of HRH The Prince of Wales. 

It was developed over seven years by by a group of invited artists to celebrate the 60th birthday of Prince Charles. It was published in two volumes by Addison Publications. Unfortunately the website has changed and you can no longer read any information about the artists who contributed to this Florilegium on the publisher's website
Technical details:
  • ​The edition is limited to 175 numbered sets
  • each set is signed by HRH The Prince of Wales. 
  • Each volume measures 650 x 475 x 60 mm (approx 2ft 2in x 1ft 7in x 2in). 
  • 15 colours of ink have been used to produce the colour plates.
  • Plates were printed on "American Cotton" paper made in the USA at the Monadnock Paper Mills in Benington New Hampshire.
  • The text was printed on Somerset Bookwove made at St. Cuthberts Mill in Somerset.
  • Both the papers were specially made for the publication.

Subscribers to  The Highgrove Florilegium include major Botanic Gardens around the world. 

You can find out more about The Making of the Highgrove Florilegium in this blog post. 
Catalogue for the Highgrove Florilegium Exhibition at the Garden Museum
Catalogue for the Highgrove Florilegium Exhibition at the Garden Museum (summer 2009)

PLACES: The Flora and Florilegium of Specific Places
​

The Florilegia developed in relation to geographical areas arise from two distinct sets of activities:
  • ECOLOGY and Flora - projects to document the plant life found in specific KNOWN geographical areas to get a better understanding of the botany and ecology systems relating to a very specific geographic area. Boundaries of such areas may be biased towards ecosystems or might relate to political divisions (e.g. country or state). 
  • EXPLORATION and Florilegium  - the documentation of the plants found as a result of journeys of DISCOVERY (eg Banks Florilegium) - that typically occurred in the past. These collections typically covered a number of countries, various climates and ecosystems for plant life.

ECOLOGY: The Flora and Florilegium of Known Places
​

These florilegia are associated with places well known for hundreds or thousands of years and typically did not involve long voyages of discovery even if the projects themselves involved travel and took a long time to complete. The focus was on mapping the plant life endemic to a specific place.

In some cases, the projects are based much closer to home in terms of where botanical artists and illustrators were based eg London!

The Codex Liechtenstein (Liber Regni Vegetabilis )
​

The fourteen volume Liber Regni Vegetabilis (Book of the Plant Kingdom) - the Codex Lichenstein - was created in the 18th century over a period of some 30 years by a team of specialist botanical artists.

It contains detailed natural history illustrations containing 2,748 plates of some 3,100 different plant species from all over the world. These were 
  • the native plants of Lower Austria and Moravia
  • plus the plants which were cultivated in both the field and the garden.
  • plus plants from the greenhouses of Vienna and surrounding region.

Franz and Ferdinand Bauer were involved at a very early stage in their career and produced more than half the paintings in the Codex. The book demonstrates how the Bauer brothers used codes to specify the colours to illustrate the plants, and with what refinement they produced their watercolour paintings.
REFERENCE
Garden for Eternity: The Codex Liechtenstein 
by H. W. Lack (Author),
Illustrators: Ferdinand Bauer and Franz Bauer
This is one of the three most important florilegia about gardens ever created.

​This 2001 publication  tells the story of a book first created in the 18th century

The  book includes a number of plates which are published for the very first time. 

Hardcover: 344 pages
Publisher: Benteli Verlag Publication date: February 2001

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Flora Londinensis
​

Flora Londinensis, or, Plates and descriptions of such plants as grow wild in the environs of London : with their places of growth, and times of flowering, their several names according to Linnæus and other authors : with a particular description of each plant in Latin and English : to which are added, their several uses in medicine, agriculture, rural œconomy and other arts
The full title of Flora Londinensis by the botanist William Curtis (1746-1799) and Elizabeth Marbury (1856-1933) can be seen above!​

Curtis has been the demonstrator of plants and Praefectus Horti at the Chelsea Physic Garden from 1771 to 1777.  ​
The Flora: 
  • contained descriptions and illustrative plates of plants growing wild in the urban area of London in the mid 18th century.
  • detailed where the plants grew and their times of growth. 
  • included hand coloured plates by botanical artists.  Most of the illustrations in the first volume are by William Kilburn. The rest of the illustrations are divided between James Sowerby and Sydenham Edwards.
  • was published in 6 volumes between 1777–1798. 
In 2008, a copy of Flora Londinensis fetched £9,375 (US$ 18,403) at an auction at Christies in London.

View (and download) a complete digitised copy of the Flora Londinensis at:
REFERENCE:
Botanical Images from Flora Londinensis
Picture
The Frontispiece to Mr Curtis' Flora Londinensis

Flora Graeca
​

(Flora Graeca is ) “the greatest botanical work that has ever appeared”
Joseph Hooker (On the Flora of Australia, London, 1859).
"the most costly and most magnificent flora ever produced"
“Oxford Chronicle” (Oct. 12, 1917)
Book: The Flora Graeca relates to flowering plants in Greece. It first appeared in a series of volumes published between 1806 and 1840. 

Author: John Sibthorp (the third Sherardian Professor of Botany at Oxford University) The project was produced and published posthumously after his early death at the age of 38. His estate helped to fund the publication of the Flora Graeca.
​
Illustrations: 966 plates - based on 996 watercolours by Ferdinand Bauer. He produced the watercolours in Oxford and each took about a day and a half to produce. The engraving of Bauer's watercolours was undertaken by James Sowerby.
Picture
This work 'Thapsia garganica' is signed F. Bauer. It's presumably been developed from the drawings made for John Sibthorp's Flora Graeca.
The book records a survey of plants found in the Levant - Greece and the eastern Mediterranean in the late nineteenth century.  

The aim was to identify all 700 flora that were first described by Dioscorides in the sixth century. The idea was to regain the knowledge of the benefit of plants

The survey was conducted during between March 1786 and December 1787. Sibthorp was responsible for collecting specimens and then providing a written description. Bauer drew the plants  - including colour-coded sketches - and then dried the specimens so they could be brought home and added to a herbarium. ​
Picture
Plate of 'Convolvulus althaeoides' (1806) by Ferdinand Bauer. From the "Flora Graeca"
Only 25 copies of the first volume were produced. To buy a volume when it was first published cost around £250 at a time when the average wage per year was £39.
​
It was so expensive that even John Lindley, Assistant Secretary of Horticultural Society and the book’s final editor was unable to afford to buy a copy!

The Bodleian Library in Oxford has all the original watercolours produced by Bauer and the associated documentation and material about the survey. ​
REFERENCE:
A video introduction to Flora Graeca by Dr Stephen Harris, Druce Curator of the Oxford University Herbaria.
The Magnificent Flora Graeca:
​How the Mediterranean Came to the English Garden 
by Stephen Harris (Author)
This is the accessible version of an Oxford University Book by Professor Walter Lack (see below) which retails for a lot of money.

​This one is slimmer, less academic and costs a lot less! 

It highlights how the plates are mirror images of the watercolours. ​
Professor Lack's review of the book for the International Association for Plant Taxonomy notes a few mistakes but generally applauds how the major problem with the first publication (i.e. its cost) has been addressed.

Hardcover: 192 pages
Publisher: The Bodleian Library
Publication date: 1 April 2007

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The Flora Graeca Story: Sibthorp, Bauer, and Hawkins in the Levant
by H.W. Lack and David Mabberley
'Walter Lack's biography of "Flora Graeca"... is a masterpiece of meticulous scholarship, expertly compiled and superbly written.... I cannot praise Professor Lack's achievement too highly.'
E. Charles Nelson, Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society
This book gives the Flora Graeca the full scholarly treatment - however it is extremely expensive!

Table of Contents
Introduction
Complexities of discovery
Physicians and apothecarians
Levant lunatics
Expeditions
Linnaean revolutions
Sibthorp - the early years
Bauer - the early years
Hawkins - the early years
Sibthorp - the first journey
Hawkins's first journey
Sibthorp - the years between
Bauer's work for Sibthorp and Hawkins
Hawkins - the years between
Hawkins's second journey
Sibthorp's second journey
Sibthorp - the final months
The collections, drawings and notes
Hawkins - home the sailor
The publication of the results
Epilogue
References
Appendices
Hardcover: 360 pages
Publisher: OUP Oxford (5 Nov. 1998)
360 Pages | 16 plates, 52 halftones,
6 maps
276x219mm
​ISBN: 9780198548973

​The OUP will print this to order.

The Transylvania Florilegium Project
​

The aim of this project is to make a permanent record of the diversity of the flora in the unchanged meadows of Transylvania around the area of HRH Prince of Wales’s Transylvanian Guesthouses in a Saxon village. There are about 2,000 species which flower generally from May through July.

The project is run under the aegis of the Prince’s School of Traditional Arts, founded by HRH The Prince of Wales and is led by Helen Allen. It started in 2012 and aimed to cover all seasons over the course of five years.  

See articles about the exhibition and publication in 2018:

The Botanical Artists

Leading botanical artists from America, Australia, England, France, Holland, Japan, New Zealand, South Africa, Switzerland and Turkey were invited to take part in the project. A small group would visit and have two weeks to record the material they need to produce three paintings two from the meadows surrounding Viscri and a third from Zalanpatak.  

​The participating artists are: ​Read more about them in my blog post Transylvania Florilegium at the Romanian Cultural Institute | BAA News

EXPLORATION - The Florilegium of Voyages of Discovery
​

Some of the most famous examples of Florilegia are associated with major voyages of discovery by Captain Cook and others. 

Banks' Florilegium 

This florilegium records and portrays the plants collected by Joseph Banks and drawn and painted by Sydney Parkinson on their voyage around the world with Captain James Cook.

Plants were collected in Madeira, Brazil, Tierra del Fuego, the Society Islands, New Zealand, Australia and Java.  Banks and his team collected 30,300 specimens of plants representing 3607 species. Of these at the time of the voyage, some 1400 were unknown.

Parkinson died on the voyage.

Banks' Florilegium was subsequently produced by a team of artists working for Daniel Solander and from Parkinson's drawings and paintings made on the voyage - plus plant material brought back to the UK.  

It took 5 artists to produce 743 completed watercolours from Parkinson's drawings, studies and annotations as to colour. 18 engravers were then hired to produce copperplate line engravings of the paintings. 

Banks left the plates to the British Museum who has in turn deposited them with the Natural History Museum.

However the Florilegium was not actually printed until the late 20th century!  The British Museum entered into a partnership with Alecto Historical Editions and in the 80s the first complete colour edition was produced - in 34 parts and 100 sets. You can now see the plates online - see links to Editions Alecto below
REFERENCE:
Banksia dentata
Watercolour of Banksia dentata (1773) by James Miller. Based on a partially coloured sketch by Sydney Parkinson (d. 1771) and the plant first collected at Endeavour River, Australia.
Joseph Banks' Florilegium: Botanical Treasures from Cook's First Voyage
​by David Mabberley, Mel Gooding, Joseph Studholme
THIS NEW BOOK was PUBLISHED 19th OCTOBER 2017

This was my 2017 Christmas present!

This is the first time these images have been published as a book for the discerning botanical art fan. This is an exceptional book.
It's also not a cheap book.
Banks commissioned more than 700 engravings between 1772 and 1784 following his return from his voyage around the world with Captain Cook.

These engravings are known collectively as Banks’ Florilegium. However the Florilegium was never published in Banks’ lifetime (read the story above )

In 1990, a complete set in colour was issued in a boxed edition (limited to 100 copies) under the direction of the British Museum.

For this book a limited set of full colour plates has been chosen for publication. The book includes a total of 175 illustrations (including black and white)
  • Expert commentary on each plant and plate is provided by botanist David Mabberley
  • Text relating to "The Making of Banks Florilegium II" historical background of the voyage and project is provided by art historian Mel Gooding
  • Joe Studholme describes the history of the modern printing.
​Hardcover: 320 pages
Artwork: 175+ illustrations in color and black and white
Size: 10.5 in x 14 in
Publisher: Thames and Hudson Ltd; 
Publication date: (1st edition): 19 October 2017

RECOMMENDED: Rated 5 out of 5* by 7 reviewers in the UK and USA

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Ferdinand Bauer's Illustrationes Florae Novae Hollandiae (1813)
​

This Florilegium relates to the exploration of Australia in 1802 by Captain Matthew Flinders RN (1774-1814) on HM Investigator. He was accompanied by:
Their mission was to map the coastline of the land mass yet to be named Australia and to study the plant and animal life they found there.  It was called New Holland at the time of the trip.

The ship was fitted out so that it was suitable for a scientific investigation and the recording of plants and preservation of plant material. Guidance on this was provided by Sir Jospeh Banks who was also influential in stimulating the trip.

The Investigator returned to England in 1805 carrying Brown and Bauer and their collections of thousands of specimens and hundreds of sketches.  In fact they had 11 boxes of 1,542 drawings of Australian plants, 180 plants of the Norfolk Islands and over 300 animals. 

Bauer had been unable to complete any paintings because of problems with paper becoming covered with spots of mold due to the general state of what was a leaky ship.

Two publications resulted from the trip and were undertaken by the Brown and Bauer working on their own.

Brown produced a flora of Australia in 1810 called Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae et Insulae Van Diemen (Prodromus of the Flora of New Holland and Van Diemen's Land) 
 
Bauer produced the florilegium llustrationes florae Novae Hollandiae almost single handedly. He created the original botanical llustrations from speciments. He then engraved the printing plates and hand-coloured the illustrations. His decision to do his own engravings was due to an inability to find a competent engraver of plant material.  The project was a financial disaster and he did not complete it.

Almost 2,000 original drawings by Ferdinand Bauer are now owned by the Naturhistorisches Museum (Natural History Museum) in Vienna, Austria.
Grevillea banksii
Plate 9 from Ferdinand Bauer's Illustrationes Florae Novae Hollandiae. The plant featured is Grevillea banksii
Picture
'Alyogyne hakeifolia' by Ferdinand Bauer, based on a drawing by him of material collected on Middle Island, Goose Island or a bay near Cape Aris, in what is now South Australia, in 1802.
Reference:
Exhibition:
The Australian Flower Paintings of Ferdinand Bauer

A Limited Edition of 515 copies of The Australian flower paintings of Ferdinand Bauer was produced in 1976 which now sells for very high prices - IF you can get hold of a copy.
  • Paintings by Ferdinand Bauer
  • Text by William T. Stearn | Introduction by Wilfrid Blunt. 
  • Limited ed. of 515 copies 
  • Publishers the Basilisk Press (London), 1976
Back to HISTORY
Back to BOTANICAL ART AND ARTISTS
Famous Botanical Artists of the Past
MORE:
Individual pages for leading botanical artists of the past (see below)