For this suite of prints Borland selected 10 plates from one of the earliest and most important woodcut herbals, Leonhart Fuchs' 'De Historia Stirpium' (History of Plants), published in 1542, and reworked them as etchings. Fuchs' herbal is one of the earliest books on plants which can properly be called scientific, and it was immensely influential in medicine and botany in succeeding decades. His introduction credits the artist and engravers involved in the production of the images, but those who coloured the plates were unidentified women and children. Hand-colouring was skilled work which required careful copying from master copies or from the original watercolours. Crude, uneven or inaccurate colouring could obscure the finely-printed outlines, or misrepresent the species or variety , and thus undermine the usefulness of the image for purposes of identification. It was common practice for print publishers to employ women for this work, but there contributions were never credited. This continued into the later 19th century when many of the serial horticultural publications were still being hand-coloured in this way. Borland's publication of these prints reversed the usual hierarchy of credits and recognition - though a number of people were involved in the etching and colouring of the plates, only those undertaking the colouring were paid and credited. Borland was inspired to produce these prints as a consequence of her 9 months' fellowship in the Social and Public Health Sciences Unit at Glasgow University in 1998-99 and her public art commission for the University - 'To be Set and Sown in the Garden' (2002) , a series of benches set out like beds in a medieval garden. The inspiration came from the discovery of a planting list for a Physic Garden drawn up by Rev Mark Jameson, the Rector's Deputy in the 1550s. Each of the benches was engraved with adaptations of 16th century illustrations of each plant.