"Some of the plates were eventually printed. Between 1900 and 1905, James Britten and the British Museum issued prints of 315 of the plant engravings in black ink, under the title Illustrations of Australian Plants. Others were included in black and white in the 1973 book Captain Cook's Florilegium. The first complete full-colour edition of the Florilegium was published between 1980 and 1990 in 34 parts by Alecto Historical Editions and the British Museum (Natural History)."
I believe that as written the snippet above may be inaccurate and/or confusing. It seems to imply that the three volumes published by James Britten between 1900 and 1905 were prints also taken from the original plates commissioned by Banks when in fact they were high quality reproductions of proofs taken when the plates where originally created. The plates and the proofs were lent to Australia, but those volumes only printed reproductions. The first time that any of the plates were printed directly from copper plates was in "Captain Cook's Florilegium" (Lion and Unicorn Press, 1973). There were 100 sets of these printed containing 30 plates each plus and additional 10 copies containing an extra 12 plates. Also it might help to mention that Bank's Florilegium was published in 34 volumes plus an additional supplemental volume. During the publication of Captain Cook's Florilegium 5 of the original plates were stolen. They were subsequently replaced by newly engraved plates and printed. The total number of plates including the 5 supplemental ones is 743. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.21.127.250 (talk) 02:17, 22 March 2012 (UTC)Reply
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