Brian D. Morley

This is quite a monumental undertaking. I am full of admiration for the productivity of the artist in particular but also the author. More than 1000 plants are illustrated and the paintings although not of especially high detail are attractive and appear botanically accurate. Unfortunately, like most books of this encyclopaedic nature, when one looks for detail ...it is absent. How can one cover all the wildflowers of Australia in 18 plates....even if there are multiple flowers on each plate. Obviously, it can't be done and so one ends up with a very pretty book with lots of lovely flower paintings to look at ...but that's where it stops. I guess, for my money, I would prefer a much more detailed work on, say, just the Banksias ...which gave me more understanding and more detail than is possible in this work.
Having said that I must admit that I picked up this book for a "song"...$5 at a charity sale. And for this price it was an absolute bargain. There is quite a nice introduction...largely about the history of international plant collection. And, I must say that I admire the perseverance of people like Rumpf, Adanson, Humbolt, and Hooker who seemed to endure the most incredible hardships in penetrating unknown regions to collect plants. Not just hardships but Rumpf's collection was sunk at sea.
In summary: the pictures are nice but the scope is probably too broad for serious study. I consider it a sort of coffee table book to be dipped into at random. I will be donating to either one of my botanical artist friends or back to a charity auction. Despite this...I give it four stars. It is good as a coffee table book.… (mere)