Narrow Leaf Bottlebrush Flower Plant Old Print Picture Floral 1990 CNHPP#49

Narrow Leaf Bottlebrush Vintage 1990 Print A colour print, rescued from a disbound book of Plant prints from 1990, with unrelated text on the reverse. Original printing date 1797, this is a reprint.

Suitable for framing, size is approx 7" x 12" or 18cm x 31cm printed edge to edge. This is a vintage print not a modern copy and can show signs of age or previous use commensurate with the age of the print. Please view any scans as they form part of the description. All pictures will be sent bagged and in a board backed envelope for protection in transit. While every care is taken to ensure my scans or photos accurately represent the item offered for sale, due to differences in monitors and internet pages my pictures may not be an exact match in brightness or contrast to the actual item. Text taken from the opposite page. Please note this cannot be supplied with the print due to being on the reverse side of the previous print. Any spelling errors are due to the OCR program used. NARROW-LEAF BOTTLEBRUSH , Metrosideros linearis (now Callistemon linearis). Hand coloured engraving. Plate 405 from Vol. 4 of Nikolaus Joseph Jacquin's Plantarum rariorum horti caesarei schoenbrunnensis descriptiones et icones, 1797-1804.

Callistemons, or Bottlebrushes, are confined in the wild to Australia and Tasmania. They belong to a section of the myrtle family which includes Metrosideros (from which they are now regarded as distinct), Eucalyptus and other genera. The fact that, at first glance, they look rather like some other Australian specialities, such as Banksia and Grevillea, is misleading. They are not closely related; but plants from the same area or habitat often exhibit a superficial resemblance to each other which does not stem from a true relationship. In many instances this resemblance can be attributed to adaptation to similar conditions. The name Callistemon, meaning "beautiful stamen", is appropriate for these eye-catching ornamental shrubs. This Callistemon was growing in the Imperial Garden at the Palace of Schönbrunn, near Vienna, where plants from many parts of the world were in cultivation. Through its collectors, the Garden had particularly close connections with South Africa and the Caribbean; but interest in the flora of Australia was gradually developing, following the recent voyages of Captain Cook. A plant of Callistemon linearis had arrived at Kew in 1788, ten years before Nikolaus von Jacquin's sumptuous florilegium Plantarum rariorum horti caesarei schoenbrunnensis began to appear. In it Jacquin described and illustrated five hundred of the rare plants growing in the Imperial Garden, which, largely through his efforts and influence, had become one of the most celebrated in Europe. The first part of Plantarum rariorum is dated 1797, the year ofJacquin's seventieth birthday; soon after publication of the final part, when he was approaching his eightieth birthday, he was created a Baron. Through four reigns he had maintained a connection with the Imperial Garden that had begun when, after completing his medical studies, he had been sent by the Emperor Francis I to collect plants and animals in the West Indies. On his return he had combined supervision of the Garden with pursuance of his scientific work, and had become Professor of Botany and Chemistry and Director of the University Botanic Garden in Vienna. He was a competent botanical artist; notable among the works for which he provided his own illustrations is his Flora Austriaca (1773-1778), published in five impressive folio volumes, which is one of the major early European Floras. But in a busy life, during which he published several important works, he could not hope to produce all the illustrations himself; he did, however, find time to supervise the artists whom he employed, and under his expert guidance several artists of distinction developed their talents.