King's Collectors for Kew: James Bowie & Allan Cunningham, Barzil 1814 - 1816. Publ. 2014. 66 (partly col.) figs. VI, 477 p. gr8vo. Paper bd.

In 1814, with the close of the Napoleonic Wars, Sir Joseph Banks persuaded the Prince Regent (later King George IV) to send two collectors to the colonies of New South Wales and the Cape of Good Hope to gather propagating material to rejuvenate and enhance the King’s Garden at Kew, then, as now, one of the world’s great botanic gardens. The collectors chosen were the Kew-trained James Bowie and Allan Cunningham.
En route to their destinations they called at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for an intended short stay, but which extended to two years. During this time they collected extensively around Rio, and undertook an epic overland expedition to São Paulo.
This book presents a transcript of their official journals and correspondence, with detailed interpretation, and links between their day-to-day accounts and surviving plant specimens in the Natural History Museum, London, and elsewhere.
The book concludes with an account of their first few months at Cape Town and Sydney respectively, where each subsequently had distinguished careers as botanists and explorers.
Their journeys are illustrated with numerous contemporary portraits, landscapes and plant paintings