We Take Our Cactus For Granted,

but many years ago so many people had never heard of, or seen a cactus,

and many botanists were eager to study them,

 but with out modern photography there was only one thing to do, 

 paint them to be studied by other botanist who did not have specimens of them, and hopefully collate of of your pictures into one volume,

 these are all by French botanist Charles Lemaire, 

 devoting pretty much his whole career to the study of Cactaceae, alas he could not find a wealthy sponsor to publish his life's work,

the illustrations of cacti featured here are in Iconographie descriptivedes cactées, ou, Essais systématiques et raisonnés sur l’histoire naturelle, laclassification et la culture des plantes de cette famille, Lemaire was also editor of the botanical journals L’Horticulteur Universel and Flore des Serreset des Jardins de l’Europe, although considered an authority Lemaire lived in semi-poverty for most of his life, never publishing a major work on Cactaceae and never managing to attract the attention of a wealthy sponsor, after his death in 1871, Edouard Andre, his successor as editor of L’Illustration Horticole, said that “Posterity will esteem M. Lemaire more highly than did his contemporaries” and he was of course correct in that statement, back to the pictures, looking at ours, some of which are illustrated here one has to marvel at the accuracy of Lemaire's work, the prints are housed at the Internet Archive from the Missouri Botanical Garden.