Frog Bit and Water Plantain, Set of 2 Antique Botanical Plates, circa 1873

This is a set of two original antique botanical plates, Plates 210 and 233 from Volume V of Anne Pratt's The Flowering Plants, Grasses, Sedges, and Ferns of Great Britain, circa 1873. They are two original sheets sold together as one lot, both given to British water and marsh plants. Plate 210 names Long Flowered Anacharis (Anacharis alsinastrum), Frog Bit (Hydrocharis morsus ranae) and Water Soldier (Stratiotes aloides). Plate 233 names Common Star Fruit (Actinocarpus damasonium), Greater Water Plantain (Alisma plantago), Floating Water Plantain (A. natans), Lesser Water Plantain (A. ranunculoides), Common Arrow Head (Sagittaria sagittifolia), Marsh Arrow Grass (Triglochin palustre), Sea Side Arrow Grass (T. maritimum) and Marsh Scheuchzeria (Scheuchzeria palustris).

Plate 210 is built around the water soldier, a rosette of long toothed leaves shaded green and reddish brown with a white flower at its center. The frog bit sits at the lower left with its round leaves and a white three petaled flower, and slender stems of the anacharis with small whorled leaves frame both sides. Plate 233 is a lighter sheet of white and pale pink three petaled flowers on branching stems, the arrow shaped leaf of the arrow head behind them, small yellow star shaped fruits at the lower right, and the slim green spikes of the arrow grasses.

The plates come from The Flowering Plants, Grasses, Sedges, and Ferns of Great Britain, the six volume flora for which Anne Pratt (1806 to 1893) wrote the text and drew the plants. It was published in London by Frederick Warne and Co., Bedford Street, Covent Garden, for the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, circa 1873, with Scribner, Welford and Armstrong as the New York house. These sheets belong to Volume V, whose title page records 237 species in color. The plates were printed in color by William Dickes of London, a licensee of George Baxter's color process.

Even age toning. Handling soiling along the edges of both sheets. A cluster of foxing in the top margin of Plate 210 and light spotting elsewhere. Small nicks along the bottom edge of Plate 210. Slight corner wear.

These are original antique plates, not modern reproductions. This item is sold unframed.