The Florilegium
Print detail — every line holds at full size

The Grand Flower

The Bolwarra

Eupomatia laurina

An ancient flowering line of eastern Australia, drawn from the living plant.

Book
Illustrationes Florae Novae Hollandiae
Artist
Ferdinand Bauer
Date
1801–1806
Held by
David Rumsey Map Collection · via Internet Archive and Wikimedia Commons
Eupomatia laurina

Format

The full-resolution scan, colour-managed to the source — yours to print, study, and explore, down to the stipple.

Size

$29.00

The story

The bolwarra of the eastern Australian rainforest, a member of one of the oldest surviving lines of flowering plants — its flowers have no true petals, and are pollinated by a single genus of weevil that eats the sterile parts as payment. Bauer drew it without knowing any of that. What he recorded was the structure, exactly, and the structure is what later told the story. A good drawing keeps answering questions nobody had yet thought to ask.

See it on your wall

The garden, brought indoors

The Bolwarra printed large and framed, hung in rooms like yours. Every edition ships ready to become the piece the room is built around.

The Bolwarra framed on the wall
The Bolwarra framed on the wall
The Bolwarra framed on the wall
The Bolwarra framed on the wall

About this reproduction

  • A faithful reproduction of a public-domain plate held by David Rumsey Map Collection · via Internet Archive and Wikimedia Commons — the work is centuries out of copyright (1801–1806).
  • Printed to order on archival cotton-rag stock, pigment inks rated 100+ years (inscribed pieces and atelier bouquets are set by hand and printed to order).
  • Colour-managed to the source scan: the hand-colour is the colourist’s, not ours. We correct nothing and invent nothing.
  • Ships in 5–10 business days, rolled in a heavy-wall tube (framed pieces ship flat-packed).
  • If it arrives less than perfect, we reprint or refund — your choice.

Why our plates cost more than a poster: we print from the highest-resolution scans in existence, at sizes where the engraving itself becomes visible — the stipple that makes a petal look soft, the wash of the hand-colourist, the veins of the leaf — on stock made to outlive its owner. A poster reproduces the picture. This reproduces the plate.

From the same hand

The Albany Pitcher Plant — Illustrationes Florae Novae Hollandiae, Ferdinand Bauer, 1801–1806

1801–1806

The Albany Pitcher Plant

A carnivorous plant found once, at the bottom of the world, and drawn perfectly the first time.

Cephalotus follicularis
Synaphea — Illustrationes Florae Novae Hollandiae, Ferdinand Bauer, 1801–1806

1801–1806

Synaphea

A Western Australian shrub, drawn with the patience of an anatomist.

Synaphea dilatata
Franklandia — Illustrationes Florae Novae Hollandiae, Ferdinand Bauer, 1801–1806

1801–1806

Franklandia

The lantern flower of the south-west, in a hand that never guessed.

Franklandia fucifolia