Only 36 more plates were issued but in 1840 a fire in the printing house destroyed the remaining stock of the published parts, which are consequently rare. Johan Wilhelm Palmstruch (1770–1811), also known as “the Swedish Sowerby” was an army officer, who had learned drawing from Desprez. He planned this magnificent work using as models Oeder's “Flora Danica” and Sowerby's “English Botany”. He started in collaboration with the engraver Carl Wilh. Venus (1770–1851) and the botanist Conrad Quensel (1767–1806) with financial support from the Academy of Sciences, which was responsible for publishing the work. The text was written by the most distinguished botanists of the period, Quensel, Olof Schwartz, Elias Friis, Göran Wahlenberg and Peter Fredrik Wahlberg. After Palmstruch's death the drawings were made by Gustaf Johan Billberg, Chancellor of the Exchequer and botanist, by Swartz, Lars Levi Laestadius, A.J. Agrelius, and P.F. Wahlberg. Palmstruch's own illustrations, in the six first volumes, have been characterized as the best pictures of plants ever produced in Sweden. Nissen, BBI #2223.

Provenance: Private collection, Denmark.