Curtis, William (1746-1799).
Flora Londinensis. London: Printed for and sold by the author ... and B. White, 1775-1798.
Curtis was a London pharmacist who gave up his business to become demonstrator of plants at the Chelsea Physic Garden in London. He decided in 1775 to begin issuing a series of plates that illustrated all the native plants that one could find in London and the surrounding area. The numbers were issued 6 plates at a time, and in 1777, he gathered the first 144 plates into a volume. The process slowed, but by 1798, two more volumes had appeared, with 434 total plates (in our copy), when the project was finally abandoned, due to a dwindling of subscriptions.
The plates are large, richly colored, and quite attractive. Although Curtis later recruited the aid of artists such as James Sowerby, the plates in volume 1 are mostly unsigned. The text that accompanies each plate makes it clear that Curtis subscribed to the new Linnaean classification system, as he provides the Linnaean genus, order, and class first, before giving the names used by other authors. Illustrated here is Convolvulus sepium, the Common Bindweed. For Veronica beccabunga, known in England as Brooklime, see the introduction to this section.