Florilegium: The Flowering of the Pacific

A rich mixture of art, history, science and exploration, this film traces the first voyages of Joseph Banks, who, as a young botanist, accompanied Captain James Cook on his first journey of circumnavigation. With fellow botanist Carl Daniel Solander, he collected over seven hundred unknown species of plants, which were recorded in drawings by Sydney Parkinson. Banks' intention to publish a complete set of engravings of these plants was not realized in his lifetime, and it was not until two hundred years later, with the largest direct printing project ever undertaken in the history of the Fine Arts, that Joseph Banks' "Florilegium" came to fruition.