Familiar Indian Flowers: with Coloured Plates

Lovely copy of a rare book on Indian flora by talented amateur female artist Lena Lowis

With 30 elegant botanicals by Lena Lowis, lithographed by David Blair, and printed by M. & N. Hanhart. Among the exotic flowers portrayed are poinsettia, flame lily, bougainvillea, hibiscus, clustervine, coralbush, Rangoon creeper, Nepal trumpet flower, white orchid tree, elephant creeper, oleander, Darwin pea, bottlebrush and Eastern prickly pear.

No publication date, but preface dated 1878.

Lena Lowis (1845-1919) was a talented writer and botanical illustrator. She was born Selina Caroline Shakespear in Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh, India, the daughter of British Indian Army officer, Col. Sir Richmond Shakespear. She married Lt. Col. Ninian Lowis of the Bengal Staffs Corps and moved to England in 1868.

David Blair (1820-1899?), was a botanical artist and lithographer who also worked on Transactions of the Linnean Society (1875), Berthold Carl Seemann and James Britten's Journal of Botany, British and Foreign (1872-8), James Britten's European Ferns (1880), etc.

Faded green cloth binding with gilt title tooling to front board, fraying at edges and hinges, letter from Aunt Lizzie dated 1898 to front endpaper, interior fresh and bright with occasional faint spot to text and plates.