Characteres generum plantarum

Johann Reinhold Forster was the main scientific companion travelling with James Cook on his 1772–1775 second voyage.

[2] Botanical specimens were collected by Georg and Anders Sparrman,[3] a student of Carl Linnaeus who had been hired as an assistant by Reinhold Forster.

[4] Reinhold Forster tried to use it to enhance his own reputation as a scientist and to compete with the first voyage's botanist, Joseph Banks.

[6][15][16] Xylosma were named Myroxylon ("myrrh tree"), referring to the inhabitants' use of it to scent coconut-based hair oil.

The copy dedicated to Charles III of Spain is now in the library of the University of California, Los Angeles, while the current whereabouts of the one originally belonging to Anna Blackburne (which was offered for sale in 1944[21]) are unknown.

[10] The book was translated into German by Johann Simon von Kerner, head of the Botanical Gardens of Stuttgart, appearing in 1779.

[25][26] The book is an important contribution to the botany of New Zealand, as the first publication containing names and descriptions of its native species.

[28] William Wales, the astronomer on the voyage with Cook, stated he had "not been able to extract any information what[so]ever, except that they found, in the whole 75 New Plants, but whether those are all, or any of them, different from such as had been discovered by Mr Banks, he cannot learn.