The 'Temple of Flora' is the most famed and extravagant of all English botanical plate books, taking the form of exotic and romantic settings for the chosen plants, with prose and verse text. The colour-printed plates are a combination of aquatint, mezzotint and other engraving processes.

This copy came to Wales in 1844 when it was donated to St David's College, Lampeter, by Thomas Phillips (1760-1851). In all, Thomas Phillips donated some 22,500 books to Lampeter, which, when added to the collections given and bequeathed by Bishop Burgess and the Bowdler family, made the library of the infant college the largest and most comprehensive in Wales.