Mark Catesby

Plants from Virginia, raised from Catesby's seeds, made his name known to gardeners and scientists in England, and in 1722 he was recommended by William Sherard to undertake a plant-collecting expedition to Carolina on behalf of certain members of the Royal Society.

Consequently, Catesby was responsible for introducing such plants as Catalpa bignonioides[3] and the eponymous Catesbaea spinosa (lilythorn) to cultivation in Europe.

Publication was financed by subscriptions from his "Encouragers" as well as an interest-free loan from one of the fellows of the Royal Society, the Quaker Peter Collinson.

[6] Not all the plates in Natural history are by Catesby: several, including the splendid and famous image of Magnolia grandiflora were by Georg Ehret.

[7] Catesby's original preparatory drawings for Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands are in the Royal Library, Windsor Castle, and selections have been exhibited in USA, Japan and various places in England including at the Queen's Gallery, London, in 1997–1998, and Gainsborough's House in Sudbury in 2015.

Mark Catesby married Elizabeth Rowland on 8 October 1747 in St George's Chapel, Hyde Park Corner, but they had been a couple for about 17 years, having at least six children between April 1731 and June 1740.

[8] Catesbaea, lilythorn, a genus of thorny shrubs belonging to Rubiaceae (madder family) from the West Indies and southeastern USA was named after Catesby, originally by Jan Frederik Gronovius.

[9] However, under present rules of nomenclature, this name was formally published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 in his Species Plantarum based on plate 100 in volume two of Catesby's Natural history of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands.

Plate from Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands (1731–1743)
Mark Catesby's birthplace in Castle Hedingham, Essex
Title page , volume two, second edition of Catesby's The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands , London, 1754
The ivory-billed woodpecker , which was sadly later to become extinct in North America, although one was reportedly sighted in the wild in Arkansas in 2005. [ 4 ] Here the bird is shown in association with the willow oak , Quercus phellos . Plate from Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands (1729–1747)