Seven Speedwells and Brooklime, Antique Botanical Print, 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 eight British speedwells, from the spiked speedwell of dry turf to the brooklime of the stream. A tall blue spike of Veronica spicata rises at the right of the sheet and a coral pink spike of the flesh colored species balances it at the left. Between them the water speedwells carry loose sprays of small pale blue flowers along stout green stems, and the low growing alpine and rock species trail across the bottom of the page with their roots drawn in.

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 remain widely familiar images of the British wild flora of that century.

Even age toning. Handling soiling along the right and top edges. Slight wear at the bottom left and top left corners.

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