The Lindley Library of The Royal Horticultural Society has a unique collection of some eighteen thousand drawings and paintings by eminent botanical artists of all periods up to the present day. This book contains a selection of the rarest and most beautiful: flowers, fruit, fungi and other plants from all over the world, by such masters as G. D. Ehret, John and William Curtis, Ferdinand Bauer, William Hooker, W. H. Fitch, Augusta Withers, Margaret Stones, Mary Grierson. Many have not been published before, all are reproduced from the artists' original work rather than from subsequent engravings. Brent Elliott, the distinguished scholar and writer who is the Society's Librarian and Archivist, introduces the book with a history of the collection - and thus the history of botanical art. Each plate is accompanied by a description of its origin and artistic accomplishment and a botanical and horticultural account of the plant itself. This is a book for all who love flowers, and all who appreciate the exquisite beauty and accuracy of great botanical art.