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New and Rare Beautiful-Leaved Plants

Shirley Hibberd’s “New and Rare Beautiful-Leaved Plants” (1870) was a Victorian book devoted to ornamental foliage. Variegated maples, aralias and alternantheras fill its plates, along with begonias, caladiums, dracaenas, coleus, striped maize, a variegated phormium and a passion flower.

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Showing 1–22 of 22

Aralia veitchii

New and Rare Beautiful-Leaved Plants

FromNow €5.00Was €6.00

Dracaena regina

New and Rare Beautiful-Leaved Plants

FromNow €5.00Was €6.00

About New and Rare Beautiful-Leaved Plants

Plants grown for their leaves rather than their flowers were in demand in Victorian Britain, for glasshouses, conservatories and the carpet bedding of parks. Hibberd, a garden writer who edited several gardening magazines, wrote his book for that market, and its plates are about the leaf: stripes, spots and coloured veins, shown large enough for the pattern to read.

Here the begonias carry spotted and marked leaves, eranthemum and adelaster pink or white veining. Three named coleus varieties share one plate, beside a red and green alternanthera of the kind used for bedding, a striped lady palm and the variegated New Zealand flax. A box elder and a red Japanese maple appear together on another. Hibberd’s plates are reproduced as giclée prints with pigment inks and made to order in Berlin on matte 210 g/m² fine art paper or 400 g/m² cotton canvas, A4 to A0.