Buckbean, Yellow Wort and Jacob's Ladder, Antique Plate by Pratt, circa 1873

An original antique color plate, Plate 139 of Volume IV of Anne Pratt's The Flowering Plants, Grasses, Sedges, and Ferns of Great Britain, showing the perfoliate yellow wort, the buckbean, the fringed water lily and Jacob's ladder. A large golden flower of Villarsia nymphaeoides opens at the center above its round floating leaf, and the violet blue bells of Polemonium caeruleum crowd the top of the sheet. Yellow stars of Chlora perfoliata stand at the right, and the white fringed flowers of the buckbean run up the left beside its heavy green foliage and thick creeping rootstock.

Issued in London by Frederick Warne and Co. for the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, The Flowering Plants, Grasses, Sedges, and Ferns of Great Britain was Anne Pratt's largest work and the one that made her name. She drew the plants as well as describing them, and the six volumes were printed in color by William Dickes, whose press specialized in natural history plates. This sheet is from Volume IV.

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 right and top edges. A few small foxing spots in the margin. Slight wear at the top left corner.

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