Mercury, Caper Spurge and Box, Set of 2 Antique Botanical Plates, circa 1873

This is a set of two original antique botanical plates from Anne Pratt's The Flowering Plants, Grasses, Sedges, and Ferns of Great Britain, Plates 189 and 193 of Volume V, published in London by Frederick Warne and Co. about 1873. They are two original sheets sold together as one lot, and the set is never split. Plate 189 names Asarabacca, Black Crowberry, Perennial Mercury and Annual Mercury. Plate 193 names Caper Spurge, Wood Spurge, Red Shrubby Spurge and Box.

On Plate 189 the asarabacca sits at the lower right with its broad kidney shaped leaves and a spread of roots, and the black crowberry climbs the left side on reddish stems crowded with small narrow leaves, a cluster of dark round berries near the top and a small pink flower head below them. The perennial mercury rises on the right with toothed leaves, and the annual mercury fills the upper left with slender spikes of tiny yellow green flowers. Plate 193 is a dense group of spurges and box: yellow green cupped flower heads crown the spurges at the top and left, the caper spurge at the lower center carries rounded green fruits, and the box on the right has oval leaves, some tinged brown, with small yellow flower clusters.

The plates come from The Flowering Plants, Grasses, Sedges, and Ferns of Great Britain, published in London by Frederick Warne and Co. of Bedford Street, Covent Garden, and carrying the name of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. Anne Pratt, 1806 to 1893, wrote the text and drew the plants herself. The work runs to six volumes, and the title page of Volume V, from which these sheets come, records 237 species in color and names Scribner, Welford and Armstrong as the New York house. 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, heaviest at the foot of Plate 193. Light foxing in the margins. Small nicks along the lower edge of Plate 193 and the left edge of Plate 189. Slight corner wear.

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