Yellow Loosestrife and Scarlet Pimpernel, Antique Flower Print, circa 1873

An original antique color plate, Plate 170 of Volume IV of Anne Pratt's The Flowering Plants, Grasses, Sedges, and Ferns of Great Britain, showing four British loosestrifes with the scarlet pimpernel and the bog pimpernel. Clear yellow star flowers of Lysimachia vulgaris open all down the center of the sheet on upright leafy stems, and the creeping loosestrife trails at the right with its round leaves and solitary flowers. The scarlet pimpernel is drawn in vivid red at the foot of the page and the pink bells of the bog pimpernel run along the lower left.

Anne Pratt's survey of the British flora appeared in six volumes from Frederick Warne and Co. of Covent Garden, London, the five volumes of flowering plants issued first and the volume of grasses, sedges and ferns added in 1873 to complete the set. Volume IV, from which this plate comes, carries 249 species printed in color, and the title page also names the New York agents Scribner, Welford and Armstrong.

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

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