The Art Album of New Zealand Flora

1889

Special Collections QK463 F892

Wellington: Printed and published at the Office of Messrs Bock and Cousins

Sarah Featon (1848-1927) and her husband, Edward (d. 1909) considered their Album to be a work of ‘national importance’ and they set out ‘to prove how fallacious and incorrect’ the belief was that there were ‘no flowers in New Zealand’. Sarah was an accomplished artist and painted all 40 plates which Edward furnished with his equally florid text. In the frontispiece, here, the ripe red berries of the Ripogonum scandens (supplejack) sit top left; the pink and white blooms of the Vitex littoralis (puriri) lay amongst the foliage in the middle; the long, dark, plum-coloured fruit of the Beilschmiedia tawa (tawa) dangle middle right; and the eye-catching Clianthus puniceus or kaka beak appears in the middle front.