Alpine and Red Veined Dock, Antique Botanical Print by Anne Pratt, circa 1873

Plate 185 of Anne Pratt's British flora, an original antique color plate printed for Frederick Warne and Co. of London, gives the alpine dock with the red veined dock and the sharp dock. Three flowering stems stand across the sheet carrying loose whorls of small green fruits, and the red veined dock at the center shows the crimson midrib and veins that name it. Broad smooth leaves spread to either side in strong green, a faint outline of a very large leaf is drawn behind them, and the cut stems are shown at the foot.

This is one of the color plates of The Flowering Plants, Grasses, Sedges, and Ferns of Great Britain, Anne Pratt's six volume account of the wild plants of the British Isles, published in London by Frederick Warne and Co. under the direction of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. The plates were printed in color by the London printer William Dickes, who worked a color process licensed from George Baxter and produced the plates for Pratt's natural history books.

Anne Pratt, 1806 to 1893, wrote more than twenty books on plants and birds and received little critical attention in her own lifetime, which later writers have put down to the Victorian reluctance to take a self taught woman seriously as a scientist. Her books nonetheless sold in very large numbers, and her plates are now the most familiar images of the British wild flora produced in that century.

Even age toning. Marked handling soiling along the bottom, right and top edges. Slight wear at the bottom right corner.

This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.