Botanical Riches: Stories of Botanical Exploration

Century after century, intrepid plant hunters and botanists travelled to exotic climes, collecting seeds and specimens. Searching for plants with economic value, medicinal benefits, or purely for lavish display, these botanical explorers carried their treasures home to their own lands.

Botanical Riches is magnificently illustrated with some of the world's most glorious engraved, lithographed and hand-coloured botanical illustrations. From the earliest Renaissance herbals, to the more elaborate and beautiful volumes from the birth of printing, books celebrating plants from far-off lands brought with them a sense of wonder.

Travel to ancient Sumer and discover where the first grains were domesticated for agriculture, through Egypt, the land of papyrus, to the Silk Road and the rice paddies of the secretive East, to the tulips of the Ottoman Empire. Then voyage through the rich wonders of the New World, the exciting flora of the Cape of Good Hope, the showy rhododendrons of the Himalayas, and the eucalypts and banksia of Australia.

With illustrations of extraordinary splendour and beauty, Botanical Riches is a colourful history and enthralling tale of botanical exploration.