Natural Resources Conservation League - Environmental Education

On April 28 1770, Lieutenant Cook (later to become Captain Cook) anchored the in Botany Bay. Soon afterwards, Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander, the two on board the Endeavour stepped foot on Australia for the first time and found a vast diversity of unlike any others known to science.
Samples were collected and for study back in . Fresh were studied on board and illustrated as quickly as possible. The ship's illustrator, Sydney Parkinson, completed ninety-four sketches during their fortnight in Bay.

Lieutenant was going to call the bay 'Stingray Bay' because of the abundant fish there, but changed his mind on seeing and hearing the remarkable botanical being made.

From there the Endeavour sailed up the eastern coast of reaching by late August. Banks and Solander spent six weeks collecting in Queensland, mostly around Endeavour (near present day Cooktown), while shipwrecked on Endeavour !
The Endeavour returned to England with the plant specimens in July 1771. Some of these specimens collected by Banks and Solander may be seen at the National of Victoria, located adjacent to the Gardens. The Endeavour also brought a consignment of Australian plant . These earliest Australian plant introductions were prized by 18th century and in France and England, and soon some two dozen Australian plants were available.
Several have been named after Joseph Banks in honor of his contributions to . One group is the genus , which occurs only in Australia, and has some 50 species with dense candle-like and woody seed cones.

Joseph Banks (1744-1822) was born into a wealthy family and studied botany at Eton and Oxford. At the age of 25, he gathered together a company including Solander and Parkinson to join Cook's Endeavour on her to observe the transit of the planet . Banks was one of the leading lights In scientific circles of these times. He was President of the for some 40 years and also personally funded scientific such as the one that went with the Endeavour.

Later botanists began a more systematic study of Australia's unique : Robert Brown (on Matthew Flinders' voyage 1801-1805), Joseph Hooker (1839-1847 exploring Tasmania and Antarctica, and working in Kew Botanic Gardens in the 1860s), George Bentham (1863-1878 producing the first Flora of Australia), and Ferdinand Mueller (later known as Baron F. von Mueller, Australia's first Botanist and a Director of the Melbourne Botanic Gardens and Herbarium, who made extensive botanical collections throughout Australia. The study of Australia's flora continues today and there is still much more to be done.