The Elruge Nectarine Rose

The Elruge Nectarine RoseWatercolour by Willliam Hooker of The Elruge Nectarine. This is taken from one of ten volumes known as 'Hooker's Fruits' which were commissioned by the RHS to help standardise the nomenclature of cultivated fruit.

Purple Emperor Butterfly

Printed illustration of a chrysanthemum variety 'Azuma Shibori' taken from the Japanese publication A Hundred Chrysanthemums by K Hasegawa

Watercolour on paper of Quercus robur (common oak)

Muscari (grape hyacinth) and Chionodoxa (glory of the snow)

Plate 20 from J L M Poiret's book 'Lecons de Flore' depicting flower types printed or painted on vellum

In 1818 John Curtis became the principal artist and produced over 400 plates for the magazine which was founded by the unrelated William Curtis in 1787

This painting appears in one of ten volumes known as Hooker's Drawings of Fruit which were commissioned by the RHS to help reform the nomenclature of cultivated fruit

The publication in two volumes 'containing coloured figures and descriptions of the most esteemed kinds of apples and pears' was edited by Henry Graves

wax apple variety

Watercolour on silk of scene with pigeons in a tree by an unknown chinese artist

French and Russian

Watercolour of Hibiscus trionum (flower-of-an-hour) by Caroline Maria Applebee