Captain James Cook was a British explorer, cartographer and naval officer famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean and to New Zealand and Australia in particular. He made detailed maps of Newfoundland prior to making three voyages to the Pacific, during which he achieved the first recorded European contact with the eastern coastline of Australia and the Hawaiian Islands and the first recorded circumnavigation of New Zealand.
Sir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet, was an English naturalist, botanist, and patron of the natural sciences.
HMS Endeavour was a British Royal Navy research vessel that Lieutenant James Cook commanded to Tahiti, New Zealand and Australia on his first voyage of discovery from 1768 to 1771.
Daniel Carlsson Solander or Daniel Charles Solander was a Swedish naturalist and an apostle of Carl Linnaeus. Solander was the first university-educated scientist to set foot on Australian soil.
Sydney Parkinson was a Scottish botanical illustrator and natural history artist. He was the first European artist to visit Australia, New Zealand and Tahiti. Parkinson was the first Quaker to visit New Zealand. The standard author abbreviation Parkinson is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.
Herman Diedrich Spöring Jr. (1733–1771) was a Finnish explorer, draughtsman, botanist and a naturalist.
Isopogon anethifolius, commonly known as narrow-leaf drumsticks or narrow-leafed drumsticks, is a shrub in the family Proteaceae. The species is found only in coastal areas near Sydney in New South Wales, and to the immediate west. It occurs naturally in woodland, open forest and heathland on sandstone soils. An upright shrub, it can reach to 3 m (9.8 ft) in height, with terete leaves that are divided and narrow. The yellow flowers appear in the Spring, from September to December, and are prominently displayed. They are followed by round grey cones, which give the plant its common name of drumsticks. The small hairy seeds are found in the old flower parts.
Isaac Smith (1752–1831) was a Rear Admiral in the Royal Navy and cousin of Elizabeth Cook wife of Captain James Cook, with whom he sailed on two voyages of exploration in the South Pacific. Smith was the first European to set foot in eastern Australia and the first to prepare survey maps of various Pacific islands and coastlines including Tierra del Fuego in South America.
The first voyage of James Cook was a combined Royal Navy and Royal Society expedition to the south Pacific Ocean aboard HMS Endeavour, from 1768 to 1771. It was the first of three Pacific voyages of which James Cook was the commander. The aims of this first expedition were to observe the 1769 transit of Venus across the Sun, and to seek evidence of the postulated Terra Australis Incognita or "undiscovered southern land".
Grevillea mucronulata, also known as green spider flower or green grevillea, is a species of flowering plant of the family Proteaceae and is endemic to New South Wales in Australia. Described by Robert Brown in 1810, it is found in open sclerophyll forest or woodland around the Sydney region and New South Wales south coast. It grows as a small bush to 3 m (9.8 ft) high and wide, with variable foliage and greenish flowers that appear over the cooler months from May to October. The flowers are attractive to birds.
Hakea teretifolia, commonly known as the dagger hakea, is a species of woody shrub of the family Proteaceae and is common on heathlands in coastal eastern Australia from northern New South Wales through to Victoria and Tasmania. A very prickly shrub, it is rarely cultivated but easy to grow.
Lambertia formosa, commonly known as mountain devil, is a shrub of the family Proteaceae, endemic to New South Wales, Australia. First described in 1798 by English botanist James Edward Smith, it is the type species of the small genus Lambertia. It is generally found in heathland or open forest, growing in sandstone-based soils. It grows as a multistemmed shrub to around 2 m (7 ft) with a woody base known as a lignotuber, from which it regrows after bushfire. It has stiff narrow leaves, and the pink to red flowerheads, made up of seven individual tubular flowers, generally appear in spring and summer. It gains its common name from the horned woody follicles, which were used to make small devil-figures.
Alexander Buchan was a Scottish landscape artist. He is known for his participation in the 1768–1771 first voyage of James Cook aboard HMS Endeavour, where he was one of the artists in the entourage of botanist Joseph Banks. Buchan had epilepsy. On the journey, he had two documented seizures, the first during an expedition in Tierra del Fuego. Buchan died after the second seizure, shortly after Endeavour's arrival at Tahiti, and was buried at sea. Buchan produced landscapes, coastal views, ethnographic drawings and natural history drawings. He is best known for illustrations of the people of Tierra del Fuego, some of which were engraved for publication in accounts of the voyage. All of his drawings from the voyage were taken by his employer Joseph Banks and are now in the British Library and the Natural History Museum, London.
Hakea gibbosa, commonly known as hairy hakea or needlebush hakea, is a shrub of the family Proteaceae, and is endemic to south eastern Australia. It has very prickly foliage, cream-yellowish flowers from April to July, and provides shelter for small birds. It has become an environmental weed in South Africa and New Zealand, where it had been introduced for use as a hedge plant.
Xylomelum pyriforme, commonly known as the woody pear, is a species of plant in the family Proteaceae native to eastern Australia. It grows as a large shrub or small tree to five metres high.
Richard John Spare is a British artist and Master Printmaker known primarily for his drypoints, etchings and oil paintings. He is based in London.
Alyxia spicata, commonly known as chain fruit, is a sprawling shrub or vine in the family Apocynaceae. It is native to New Guinea and the Australian tropics.
Decaisnina brittenii is a species of flowering plant, an epiphytic hemiparasitic plant of the family Loranthaceae native to the Northern Territory, Queensland and northern Western Australia.
A Journal of a Voyage to the South Seas, in His Majesty's ship, the Endeavour is a 1773 book based on the papers of Sydney Parkinson, who accompanied Joseph Banks as botanical illustrator on the first voyage of James Cook. Parkinson died at sea in 1771 on the return voyage, and the Journal was compiled by William Kenrick for Parkinson's brother Stanfield, who quarrelled with Banks about his brother's papers and belongings and attacked Banks and others in the book's preface. A legal injunction prevented the publication of the Journal until after the official account of Cook's voyage, edited by John Hawkesworth, had appeared. A second edition appeared in 1784 with explanatory remarks by John Fothergill.
An Account of the Voyages Undertaken by the Order of his Present Majesty for Making Discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere, and successively performed by Commodore Byron, Captain Wallis, Captain Carteret, and Captain Cook, in the Dolphin, the Swallow, and the Endeavour: drawn up from the journals which were kept by the several commanders, and from the papers of Joseph Banks, Esq. is a 1773 book by John Hawkesworth about several Royal Navy voyages to the Pacific: the 1764–1766 and 1766–1768 voyages of HMS Dolphin under John Byron and Samuel Wallis, the voyage of HMS Swallow under Philip Carteret (1766–1769), as well as the 1768–1771 first voyage of James Cook on HMS Endeavour. Hawkesworth received an advance of £6,000 for editing the three volumes.
