With their bold flowering and fruiting spikes, banksias remain a favourite among artists and gardeners alike. A Banksia Album features over 90 stunning full-colour reproductions of watercolours, pencil and sepia-wash drawings, colour prints and early hand-coloured engravings and lithographs of banksias from the National Library of Australias collections. A Banksia Album covers over two centuries of botanical illustration, from 1770 when the Endeavours artist, Sydney Parkinson, was the first European to make drawings of banksias at Botany Bay, to 2007 with two prints of Banksia rosserae by Celia Rosser.
The banksia is quintessentially Australian. Known and loved for its brush-like flowers and sweet honey nectar, the plant embodies both the beauty and harshness of the Australian landscape. Little Books of Banksias features poems and extracts by some of Australia¿s greatest poets, including Dorothy Hewett, Archie Weller and Douglas Stewart. The artists represented in the publication include Marian Ellis Rowan, Marrianne Collinson Campell, Adam Forster and Ebenezer Edward Gostelow.
Food historian Emma Kay tells the story of our centuries-old relationship with herbs. From herbalists of old to contemporary cooking, this book reveals the magical and medicinal properties of your favourite plants in colorful, compelling detail. At one time, every village in Britain had a herbalist. A History of Herbalism investigates the lives of women and men who used herbs to administer treatment and knew the benefit of each. Meet Dr Richard Shephard of Preston, who cultivated angelica on his estate in the eighteenth century for the sick and injured; or Nicholas Culpeper, a botanist who catalogued the pharmaceutical benefits of herbs for early literary society. But herbs were not only medicinal. Countless cultures and beliefs as far back as prehistoric times incorporated herbs into their practices: paganism, witchcraft, religion and even astrology. Take a walk through a medieval ‘physick’ garden, or Early Britain, and learn the ancient rituals to fend off evil powers, protect or bewitch or even attract a lover. The wake of modern medicine saw a shift away from herbal treatments, with rituals and spells shrouded with superstition as the years wore on. The author reveals how herbs became more culinary rather than medicinal including accounts of recent trends for herbal remedies as lockdown and the pandemic leads us to focus more on our health and wellbeing.
Women of Flowers pays tribute to the female colonial artists who drew and painted the indigenous wildflowers and plants of Australia. The publication focuses on the rich holdings of albums, sketchbooks and paintings in the Pictures Collection of the National Library of Australia, as well as works from other major collecting institutions. Each chapter presents a short biography of an artist, followed by a 'portfolio' section of images, in a similar layout to the previous successful title Brush with Birds. Artists include: Marianne Collinson Campbell; Ellis Rowan; Dorothy English Paty; Ida McComish; Louisa Ann Meredith.
Around 1870, Ferdinand von Mueller, the greatest Australian botanist of the nineteenth century, began to advertise in several newspapers across Australia for 'lady' plant collectors. This was at a time when women typically had little recourse to science, or contact with men outside their circle of friends, making Mueller's network of ladies quite extraordinary. Collecting Ladies profiles 14 of Mueller's coterie of women collectors. Included are Fanny Charsley, Louisa Atkinson, Annie Walker and Ellis Rowan for whom Mueller made time to assist in pursuit of their own passions. He identified the plants they painted and provided letters of introduction to publishers and scientists. Together, these ladies produced some of the most beautiful books and botanical art to come out of Australia in the nineteenth century, covering all the Australian colonies.
