Completed in 1747, Mark Catesby's was the first major illustrated publication on the flora and fauna of Britain's American colonies. Together with his (1763), which detailed plant species that might be transplanted successfully to British soil, Catesby's exerted an important, though often overlooked, influence on the development of art, natural history, and scientific observation in the eighteenth century. Inspired by a major traveling exhibition of Catesby's watercolor drawings from the Royal Library, Windsor Castle, this collection of interdisciplinary essays considers Catesby's endeavors as a naturalist-artist, scientific explorer, experimental horticulturist, ornamental gardener, and early environmental thinker in terms of the interests held by the various, overlapping communities in which he functioned—particularly as those interests related to the British colonial enterprise.The contributors are David R. Brigham, Joyce E. Chaplin, Mark Laird, Amy R. W. Meyers, Therese O'Malley, and Margaret Beck Pritchard.