English Botany was a major publication of British plants comprising a 36 volume set, issued in 267 monthly parts over 23 years from 1790 to 1814.

Initially Smith had declined to have his name associated with the work as he considered that his professional co-operation with a socially inferior artisan such as Sowerby might degrade his standing in higher circles.

In spite of this abuse of their social class differences by Smith, the two men were good friends and happily worked together on several projects over many years.

The full title reads; English Botany or, Coloured Figures of British Plants, with their Essential Characters, Synonyms and Places of Growth.

The complete First Edition comprises 2,592 hand-coloured, finely detailed, copper-plate engravings, including 3 fold-outs, each with a single page of text.

The very high quality, fully coloured plates accompanied by brief technical descriptions followed by lengthy comments in plain English resulted in the work's immediate popularity with the general public.

Even though printed in runs of up to 900 copies, an extraordinarily high number for copper-plate engravings, few complete, first edition sets of the work were actually assembled.

The Second Supplement, issued from June 1831 to January 1835, comprised 104 additional plates destined for the Second Edition, numbered 2693 - 2796 including two fold-out illustrations.

However, it is evident that by this time the original copper plates had started to deteriorate to such a degree that many were copied whilst others suffered low-grade, clumsy repair work.

They mostly suffered from the frequent addition of crudely drafted, un-coloured outlines of the leaves that further reduced the quality and aesthetics of the earlier editions.