British botanist responsible for the most expensive and magnificent flora ever produced: the Flora Graeca. John Sibthorp became the Sherrardian Professor of Botany at Oxford University, following his father, Humphrey Sibthorp who famously delivered only one lecture during his 36 years in the position. The only child of Humphrey's second marriage John was educated at Lincoln School and Lincoln College, from which he received his BA in 1777. Keen to study medicine he attended Edinburgh University due to the poor standard of education for this subject in Oxford, and during his year in Scotland travelled the highlands in search of plants in his Easter vacation.

In 1781 Sibthorp left for the continent and spent almost a year at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, studying alongside Antoine Laurent de Jussieu. After a further 10 months in Montpellier with Auguste Broussonet he returned to England where his father was waiting to pass the professorship on to him. Receiving his medical degree in January 1784, he was appointed in March. Although much more enthusiastic about his subject than his father had been, John Sibthorp was desperate to labour in the field and, having immediately received a Radcliffe travelling fellowship from the university, he left England once more. Travelling to Germany Sibthorp remained a while in Göttingen and tried to plan his future endeavours. During 1785 he collected in Germany before moving on to Vienna. It was here that the inspiration for his life's work appeared to him in the form of Dioscorides' materia medica (a Greek doctor's account of his country's plants and their medicinal uses from the first century A.D.). Interested in finding and identifying these plants and comparing them with Dioscorides' original descriptions he started planning an expedition to Greece.

Setting out with only one companion, a talented young botanical artist from Austrian named Ferdinand Bauer, they travelled for six weeks overland to Naples, and from there by boat to Constantinople. Along the way the pair visited many Greek islands, Crete, Athens, Smyrna and Bithynia. In Constantinople they wintered at the British embassy, and Sibthorp informed his friend, Sir Joseph Banks, that he had already discovered 300 new species. Although aware of his draughtsman's talents, Sibthorp refused to consider Bauer a companion and was particularly unfriendly towards him. Resolved to find a travelling companion his own nationality, age and class, he enlisted the help of fellow botanist John Hawkins. The three of them left for Cyprus in the spring and continued on to explore the Aegean. Following a visit to Thessalonica and a somewhat traumatic ascent of mount Delphis, Sibthorp returned to England in 1787.

Back at Oxford Bauer set about producing 966 folio sized watercolours using his sketches and Sibthorp's herbarium material. Producing a magnificent painting every one and one quarter days his work was what eventually made the Flora Graeca so impressive and expensive. At the same time Sibthorp finally devoted himself to his professorship and for six years he gave lectures and classes. Publishing a book on the flora of Oxfordshire arranged according to the Linnaean system, to which Sibthorp remained forever faithful, it aided his pupils in their study. At the same time he vastly improved the university's botanical garden which had lain in ruins after the neglect of his father. A keen horticulturalist he introduced many plants from Greece with the help of Mr. Foreman, a talented head gardener, but whom Sibthorp considered too fat.

It had long been accepted that in order to publish the Flora Graecae the party would have to make another trip to Greece. Bauer, quite understandably, refused to go, and a new assistant (Francis Borone) was chosen instead. Even before the expedition began Sibthorp was in poor health (having contracted malaria on his first trip) and, after travelling all the way to Constantinople by carriage and narrowly avoiding the armies of the French Republic, he arrived "nearer dead than alive". Recovering after several months at the embassy they would spend the majority of this trip in the Peloponnese and were the first Englishmen to explore the Maini Peninsular. On his return, however, Sibthorp developed a cold which grew steadily worse as they approached England. So weakened was his body from the journey that he died in Bath a matter of months later, having never returned to Oxford.

The completion of the flora was made possible by the money from Sibthorp's estate in South Leigh, which he left to the university. Two of his executors, John Hawkins and Thomas Platt, took on the Herculean task of editing the publication along with Sir James E. Smith. The team had great difficulty linking species notes in Sibthorp's manuscripts to the specimens and Bauer's paintings, none of which were labelled. Eventually, though, a Prodromus Florae Graecae, written entirely by Smith, was published between 1806 and 1816. The Flora Graeca took a little longer and the 10 folio volumes, replete with 100 hand coloured illustrations each and produced by the Sowerby family from copper engravings, were published by 1840. Smith had long since passed away and John Lindley was employed to complete the last three volumes. When the executors finally came to pay the bill in 1840 it came to £15,572, only just over a third of which was covered by the 25 sales made of the series. The rest was covered by rents from the Sibthorp estate. Between 1845 and 1856 Henry G. Bohn re-published 40 copies which were sold for a much reduced price.

Sources:
M.R. Bruce, 1970, "John Sibthorp", Taxon, 19: 353-361
S.A. Harris, 2008, "Sibthorp, Bauer and the Flora Graeca", Oxford Plant Systematics, 15: 7-8
H. W. Lack, 1999, The Flora Graeca story: Sibthorp, Bauer and Hawkins in the Levant
W.T. Stearn, 1967, "Sibthorp, Smith, the 'Flora Graeca' and the 'Florae Graecae Prodromus'", Taxon, 16: 168-178.