3-056-910 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Enormous Polypody, c1759-c1772. Probably a depiction of Polypodium vulgare 'Whitley Giant', an evergreen or semi-evergreen fern, found throughout western Europe and North Africa. From "Exotic Botany illustrated, in thirty-five figures of curious and elegant plants: explaining the sexual system; and tending to give some new lights into the vegetable philosophy".