[2][8][9][10] Smith especially admired the work of Walter Hood Fitch, who was then the lead artist for Curtis's Botanical Magazine.

One consequence was that Smith rapidly became a key illustrator at the magazine, at first working alongside Harriet Anne Thiselton-Dyer.

[13][14][15] In this he follows a pattern first noticeable in the Victorian era of progressively devaluing botany and botanical art as women entered the field professionally.

[16] Other authors, however, both now and in her own day, have admired the clarity and precision of her drawing, and her four decades of employment at the center of the British botanical world testifies to a continuing value for her skills.

She also made reproductions of plates missing from incomplete volumes in Kew's library, and she became the first botanical artist to extensively depict the flora of New Zealand.