First Fleet artwork collection

Tree, with detail of flowering branch drawn at natural size. The whole tree is depicted on the lower half of the sheet standing on a ground composed of a green wash, overlaid with tufts of grass and black and grey serpentine lines. The tree has a grey-brown trunk and foliage represented in clumps by a mid-green wash overlaid with dark green, yellow and olive-brown marks, some of which are glazed. The detail depicts a green, ridged stalk, a bipinnate leaf, and two inflorescences with round yellow blossoms. The drawing is annotated in black and brown ink, possibly in two different hands, and framed by a pencil border.

• Port Jackson Painter]
• The drawing is inscribed in blue pencil at top right with the number "403", which refers to the pre-1984 numbering system for the Watling Collection.
• The drawing is annotated in black ink at centre right "Natural size", and at bottom "This tree grows about forty or fifty feet in height forming so close a cover it is difficult to get through. The timber is of no use unless for pailing or light work the tree grows very straight and is one of the handsomest trees I have seen when in blossom --------- blossoms in September", followed in brown ink and in a different hand by "The odour of the Bloom is very fine."
• The drawing is unsigned and undated.
• The author of this catalogue record is Suzanne Stenning.
• By permission of the trustees of the Natural History Museum (London)
• Two sets of transparencies held in the Natural History Museum (London) Zoology Library and Picture Library: Picture Library reference number 12468
• James Lee of Kensington : purchased ; 1902
• Data sheet available