Our Botanical Illustrations

In the age of Exploration, a ship would never set sail to exotic countries without an artist to draw each new plant or flower that ever came across the crew’s path. 

During the voyage of the H.M. Endeavour, Captain James Cook (1728-1779 had such an artist. His name was Sydney Parkinson. Sydney Parkinson was born in Scotland in 1745. In 1766 he came to London, and worked for the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, England. In 1768 he joined the crew of the H.M. Endeavour as a botanical illustrator, along with artist Daniel Solander (1733- 1782). Both men died on the voyage. 

The voyagers set sail in August, 1768. The ship traveled down the eastern coast of South America, stopping in Brazil and Tierra del Fuego (at the very bottom of South America) and across the Pacific Ocean. The Endeavour then stopped in Australia, New Zealand, and Java. It then traveled up the western coast of Africa and returned to England on July 12^th, 1771.

Ms. Walton’s 6^th grade Enrichment class decided they would like to draw some botanical illustrations as done in the 1700s. We chose different plants and flowers from the Kids Growing Food garden at our school. We paid close attention to the details such as the root structure, shapes of seeds, petals and leaves. Here are the finished products.

By Olivia Kennision

The Botany Library at the Natural History Museum in London holds all of the surviving botanical artwork from Captain James Cook's first Pacific voyage.

You can see highlights of the collection when you visit the museum’s website: www.nhm.ac.uk/index.html:

Or go right to the Endeavour exhibit:

www.nhm.ac.uk/jdsml/nature-online/endeavour-botanical/