It cost several lives and millions of pounds, has survived bomb blasts and chemical attack, and is hailed as one of the most brilliant collections of botanical art in the world. Now Banks' Florilegium, a priceless record of the first scientific work in Australia, is coming to a computer near you. DRY EUCALYPTUS leaves crunched underfoot as 27-year-old Joseph Banks, amateur botanist, walked through the alien landscape of New Holland. Close behind was his even younger artist, Sydney Parkinson, who asked Banks if he should set up his easel so he could commence painting. Everything was exotic here - the plants, the animals, the natives - and neither man knew quite where to begin. Parkinson wrote in his diary: "The country is very level and fertile; thesoil, a kind of grey sand; and the climate mild: and though it was the beginning of winter when we arrived, everything seemed in perfection."
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