Sesbania Coccinea (Linnaeus) Poiret. [Sesbania grandiflora]

In 1980, the British printing firm Alecto Historical Editions took up the task of finally printing the 743 line engravings originally created between 1772 and 1784. A limited edition of 100 full sets, entitled Banks’ Florilegium, were printed in full colour, directly from the original plates held by the British Museum. The project took 10 years to complete. The plates were printed on an Albion hand roller press. Up to 15 colours were inked by hand onto every copperplate for each print pulled.

The work involved producing 83,959 perfect impressions. The soft copper of the plates meant a larger print run was difficult. 

The vegetable hummingbird, agati in Tamil and Agase in Kannada or hummingbird tree is native to the Northern Territory and Southeast Asia. The flowers of S. grandiflora are eaten as a vegetable in Southeast Asia, including Laos, Thailand, Java and Lombok in Indonesia, Vietnam, and Sri Lanka. 

Sydney Parkinson (1745-1770) artist on Cooks 1st Voyage of in the Endeavour, which sailed to Tahiti to observe the transit of Venus and charted the Pacific islands, New Zealand and Australia. Published by Alecto Historical Editions in association with the British Museum (Natural History).