Eagle’s Complete Trees and Shrubs of New Zealand. Volume I

2006

Private Collection

Wellington: Te Papa Press

Audrey Eagle’s Complete Trees and Shrubs is the culmination of over fifty years work. Eagle began painting plant specimens she had collected in 1954. Her first illustrated volume, containing 228 paintings, was published in 1975. A second volume appeared in 1982. In 2006 the definitive edition appeared, containing drawings of all the trees and shrubs native to New Zealand, including those from the previous two volumes. Eagle’s work, which totals some 800 botanical paintings, has won several awards, including the 2007 Montana Medal for Non-Fiction. Weighing in at six kilograms, and described as a ‘surrogate herbarium’, this is truly a monumental work.