Gavin Bridson, bibliographer at the Hunt Institute, explains in the introduction that before printmaking the main problem for artists was distributing botanical drawings so that botanists everywhere could study them. Bridson goes on to trace the history of printing methods for botanical illustrations through five centuries. With the aid of photographic enlargement of details in a one to one ratio, 72 examples of relief, intaglio, planographic, nature-prints and photographic printing techniques are analyzed in this catalogue that accompanied a 1986 exhibition.