This sheet is taken from the only surviving painted florilegium from seventeenth-century England. This florilegium was painstakingly completed over at least three decades as a personal archive by the plant-loving gardener Alexander Marshal. He was acquainted with many of the greatest plantsmen of his day, including John Tradescant the Younger (1608 – 62) and Henry Compton (1632 – 1713), Bishop of London. The florilegium probably represents an amalgam of plants grown by the leading florists of the late seventeenth century.