The Florilegium
Print detail — every line holds at full size

The Temple of Flora

The Indian Reed

Canna indica

A scarlet canna against a Himalayan sky — botany staged as weather.

Book
New Illustration of the Sexual System of Carolus von Linnaeus
Artist
Robert John Thornton
Date
1799–1807
Held by
Wikimedia Commons
Canna indica

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

Thornton's idea was that a flower should be shown in the emotional weather of its native place, so his plates set each bloom against a landscape and a sky doing something dramatic. Here a scarlet canna stands against mountains. No flower book before or since has looked like this, and no flower book has ever lost so much money — Thornton sank his inheritance into it, tried to recoup by running a public lottery for the plates, and died poor. He gave the flowers weather, and it cost him everything.

See it on your wall

The garden, brought indoors

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

The Indian Reed framed on the wall
The Indian Reed framed on the wall
The Indian Reed framed on the wall
The Indian Reed framed on the wall

About this reproduction

  • A faithful reproduction of a public-domain plate held by Wikimedia Commons — the work is centuries out of copyright (1799–1807).
  • 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 Night-Blowing Cereus — The Night-Blowing Cereus, from The Temple of Flora, Robert John Thornton, 1799–1807

1799–1807

The Night-Blowing Cereus

A flower that blooms once, by moonlight.

Selenicereus grandiflorus
The Blue Passion Flower — The Blue Passion Flower, from The Temple of Flora, Robert John Thornton, 1799–1807

1799–1807

The Blue Passion Flower

An intricate bloom against a brooding sky.

Passiflora caerulea
Hyacinths — Hyacinths, from The Temple of Flora, Robert John Thornton, 1799–1807

1799–1807

Hyacinths

Hyacinths massed against a stormy sky.

Hyacinthus orientalis