Title: Early New Zealand Botanical Art

Author: F. Bruce Sampson

Publication details: Reed Methuen, 1985, Auckland

Digital publication kindly authorised by: F. Bruce Sampson

Part of: New Zealand Texts Collection

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Early New Zealand Botanical Art

Indigenous Grasses

Indigenous Grasses

The Indigenous Grasses of New Zealand has been described as the first major botanical work by a resident botanist. It was published "by command" for the Colonial Museum by George Didsbury, Government Printer, Wellington. Although the title page of the first volume (containing parts one and page 92 two), issued in 1878, indicated it would be in five parts, it was published in six. The reason for this was to allow inclusion of "new species of grasses that have been discovered during the period that has been occupied in preparing this volume". Volume two, containing parts three and four, appeared in 1879, and volume three (parts five and six) was published in 1880. In that year it was issued as a single volume, in which the tinted background was omitted in the plates. Indigenous Grasses contains sixty-four plates and ninety pages of descriptive text. A total of eighty-seven grasses are illustrated. Subsequent work has shown that a few of these are introduced species. In 1880 a smaller (octavo) and cheaper edition appeared also, with the slightly different title Manual of the Indigenous Grasses of New Zealand. This had a reset text and plates that were reduced in size by photolithography and printed in olive-green ink.