It’s the fiftieth post!
So I have a rather special post I have been saving for a while.

Between 1768 and 1771 there was a rather special boat rolling the waves of the high seas. It was called the ‘HMS Endeavour’ and it was commanded by Captain James Cook in a voyage of exploration. A lot happened on that journey, which I think can be better told elsewhere. What made it extra special was that it was the first voyage exclusively devoted to scientific exploration.

The Natural History Museum here in London has a rather splendid series of the botanical illustrations that were made on the voyage by Sydney Parkinson (1745-1771) and some completed after by John Frederick Miller and Frederick Polydore Nodder, amongst other chaps. Mainly done in watercolour, the images are subtle, beautiful, highly detailed and represent the first recorded scientific illustrations of certin exotic plant species  The magnitude of this must have been dizzying to the botanical community at the time.

There are books available with collections of these works, but you can see some great quality online versions by searching for a plant from the NHM endeavour archive website. I could look at this for hours and never get bored once. Ever.