Background:

These beautiful prints are from a guide to "the most ornamental-foliaged plants not hitherto noticed in any work on the subject".  The accuracy and appearance of the engravings was described in a review by the Gardener's Chronicle as "simply not interesting but remarkable".  In discussing the need for such a folio, the Introduction states "It is but recently that the beauty of leaves has been fully recognized, and the passion that has arisen for collecting and cultivating 'fine-foliaged plants' is one of the newest, but is not at all likely to be transient".