Glasswort, Sea Blite and Saltwort, Antique Salt Marsh Plate, circa 1873

An original antique botanical plate of the British flora, printed in color in London for Frederick Warne and Co., this sheet is given over to the glassworts and sea blites of the salt marsh with the prickly saltwort and the two knawels. Fleshy jointed stems of Salicornia stand through the center of the sheet in clear green, some of them flushed with coral at the joints, and the needle leaved shrubby sea blite spreads behind them. Tiny crimson flowers dot the stems at the left, and the low tufted knawels are drawn at the foot with their roots.

Anne Pratt brought out The Flowering Plants, Grasses, Sedges, and Ferns of Great Britain through Frederick Warne and Co. of Bedford Street, Covent Garden, in six volumes covering more than fifteen hundred species. The plates were printed in color by William Dickes of London, a licensee of the Baxter color process, and this sheet comes from Volume IV, which the title page records as carrying 249 species in color.

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. Handling soiling along the bottom, right and top edges. Slight wear at the bottom right and top left corners. Minor edge wear, shallow nicks along the left.

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