Epilogue

Abstract The Flora Graeca saga neared its end when Platt closed the accounts and transferred the ‘ballance of [£]9 9[s] 2[d] to the Account of Dr. Gibbert late V. C. [Vice-Chancellor] at Mess.rs Child & Co.’; this was done on 29 December 1840, almost forty-five years after the death of Sibthorp, fourteen years after the death of Bauer, and twelve years after the death of Smith. By then the specimens still on loan to Lindley, as well as all the copper plates which had been used for the production of the Flora Graeca, were probably returned to Oxford. Platt paid for the transport of the latter to Oxford on 2 November 1840. A month later, the whole remaining stock of letterpress was sent from London to Oxford, and the receipt acknowledged on 22 December 1840 by P. Bliss, Registrar of the University.’ This consignment may have included a special tribute from Hawkins and Platt for the University, regarded by some in the famous trial as the true publishers of the two works—two complete sets of the Flora Graeca. They were deposited in the Bodleian Library and in the library of the Physic Garden. While the first set was later sold, the latter set is still kept in the library of the Department of Plant Sciences, labelled with a bookplate which reads: ‘Decem haec volumina inter libros bibliothecae horti botanici oxoniensis Johannis Sibthorp. M. D. testamenti curatores Johannes Hawkins et Thomas Platt perpetuo servari voluerunt A. D. MDCCCXL’ [John Hawkins and Thomas Platt, the executors of John Sibthorp M. D., wanted to have these ten volumes permanently preserved among the books of the library of the Oxford Botanic Garden. A.D. 1840].