Abelmoschus moschatus tuberosus, Ferdinand Bauer New Holland Flora

$150.00

.Rare Limited Edition reproduction of a watercoloured drawing of Australian native Hibiscus print by Austrian artist Ferdinand Bauer (1760-1826) for "The Australian Painting of Ferdinand Bauer", a selection reproduced from Bauer's 'Illustrations Florae Novae Hollandiae' (Illustrations of the Flora of Australia originally published in London circa 1815. Between 1801 and 1805 Bauer accompanied Matthew Flinders on the first circumnavigation of Australia. Unfortunately Brown could not find financial support for publication on his return to England, so Bauer left England and returned to Vienna where he finished his series of plants and animals of Australia. The high quality of Ferdinand Bauer's botanical illustrations combined exceptional scientific observation with subtle artistry.

Linnaeus based his Hibiscus abelmoschus on cultivated material grown in Holland from unknown provenance. In 1787 Friedrich Casimir Medicus, who never lost an opportunity of disagreeing with Linnaeus, broke the Linneaen genus Hibiscus into five smaller genera which included Abelmoschus. To avoid the name of Abelmoschus Abelmoschus he renamed the species Abelmoschus Moschatus. The subspecies Tuberosus applies to itsw tuberous tap-root, short pedicels and tomentose or glabrous seeds. Robert Brown collected this specimen at Caledon Bay, Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, on 6 February 1803.

The botanical plate paper size is 50 x 33cm (19.6 x 13 inches). For presentation at the time of publication, each of these pages was lightly attached at the vertical edges to a dark green sheet of thick paper which has slightly shrunk.