On the cultivation of the plants belonging to the natural order of Proteeae, with their generic as well as specific characters and places where they grow wild. By Joseph Lnight, F.H.S. 1809.
The book is dedicated to George Hibbert, Esquire, "by whom so many of the plants now first described, have been introduced into this kingdom."
All new plants names in the book are those of R.A. Salisbury, Esq. "whose manuscripts have been found so useful in every sheet."
The genus of Protea, as it is left in the work of that indefatigable traveller, Professor Thunberg, contains 60 species, 25 of which he himself discovered, and all of which he probably saw growing wild at the Cape of Good Hope: these he described after his return to Europe, from dried specimens, but it must be confessed very imperfectly: nevertheless his specific differences have been copied, almost word for word, by Professor Willdenow. In the Chelsea garden, still containing many venerable relics of Phillip Miller's labours, only 5 species had been cultivated previous to the year 1770, about which time several were raised in his Majesty's garden at Kew, from seeds collected by the late Mr. Francis Masson; and a still greater number both of known and unknown species, have since been collected by Mr. James Niven, many of which have at length flowered in this country, and no where more luxuriantly, than in the collection of my late master, George Hibbert, Esq. at Clapham. by whose liberality most of them are now in my possession.