She collected specimens of each native flowering plant and illustrated each one, creating a portfolio of 44 full-page color plates.

She sent the specimens to Joseph Dalton Hooker, then director of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, England, for scientific identification.

[11] She dedicated the volume: “To the Hawaiian Chiefs and People who have been most appreciative friends, and most lenient critics, this work is affectionately inscribed.”[10][1] Isabella was among the first authors to express concern about the loss of native habitats on Hawaiian flora due to land development and competition from invasive species:[1] "The Hawaiian flora seems to grow in an easy, careless way," she wrote, "which, though pleasingly artistic, and well adapted to what may be termed the natural state of the islands, will not long survive the invasions of foreign plants and changed conditions.

Forest fires, animals and agriculture, have so changed the islands, within the last fifty or sixty years, that one can now travel for miles .

without finding a single indigenous plant; the ground being wholly taken possession of by weeds, shrubs and grasses, imported from various countries.

[14][15] Isabella's brother, also named William McHutcheson, likely visited his sister during an extensive six-months tour in 1886 that included Hawaii, North America, England, and Scotland.

Francis spent much of the rest of his life in England, published several books of poetry and essays, and died on 22 July 1916 on the Island of Jersey.