Flowering cactus botanical plate with Latin caption

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A botanical plate of a flowering cactus, labeled with its Latin name in the caption, places this study firmly in the tradition of scientific illustration. Plates like this were drawn to record a plant's form for botanists who could not always see living specimens, so the flowers, spines and stem structure are usually rendered with close attention to detail. Look at the caption as well as the drawing: the Latin binomial shows how the image was meant to be read, as a precise record that circulated among naturalists rather than as decorative art. Such plates were often hand colored or printed in limited runs, which makes early examples especially prized by collectors and researchers today.

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