In 2013 Portmeirion introduced a new dinner plate in the Botanic Garden range, the Sunflower:
The Sunflower also appears on mugs and jugs:
Here the Sunflower is on three different plate sizes:
Apart from the large salad bowl, still missing here, there is a 5.5 inch salad bowl:
and an 8 inch pasta bowl:
It is a delightful flower in the Botanic Garden
I came across several Pomona dishes that never made it to production. One is a small 11 inch oval plate with the Biggeraux Cherry and the Ingestrie Pippin :
It has a small greyish oval backstamp.
Regular plates have one motif, such as here the Red Currant:
A larger 15 inch platter has the Roman Apricot. Here it is the shape, or rather the rim of the dish that is unusual:
The backstamp clearly states it is a sample:
Another 15 inch platter has the regular shape, but it features four smaller motifs instead of one large one:
It has the Wilmots Early Red, the Hoary Morning Apple, the Imperatrice Plum and the White Dutch Currants.
This platter has no backstamp at all, on the rim are the letters NF. Slightly mysterious, this wonderful platter.
In 1978 the Rose and Passion Flower range was launched. All items had the same motif, an eighteenth century watercolour:
There was a teaset as well:
Like the Botanic Garden range, the Birds of Britain started out with sets of six different plates. The 11 inch dinnerplates were the Grey Phalarope, the Little Egret, the Magpie, the Harlequin Duck, the Barnowl and the Black Cock:
The Barnowl was thought to bring bad luck in some countries and was therefore withdrawn. The Black Cock was also withdrawn,”as its name was thought to discourage sales”. They were replaced by the Wood Duck and the Common Sandpiper:
The older dinnerplates have the green band, but I have two with another border, the Harlequin Duck and the Magpie:
Portmeirion also created a series of four Birds of America:
They are the Mallard, the Pintail, the Bobwhite Quail and the Ruffed Grouse. Here they have the Botanic Garden leafed border. There are more items in this short-lived range, such as a set of 4 inch mugs:
There are six different 8 inch salad plates:
They are the Waxwing, the White Wagtail, the Turtle Dove, the Roller, the Rose Coloured Starling and the Hoopoo.
I have four of these plates in the borderless variety:
Here is the Rose Coloured Starling with another border:
The 8 inch soup plates and the 6 inch bread and butter plates have the same birds:
They are the Nuthatch, the Bullfinch, the Nightingale, the Chaffinch, the Cirl Bunting and the Kingfisher.
My plates all have the old green band, later Portmeirion introduced the oak leafed border:
Except for the changes in the dinner plates, Portmeirion kept the same birds on the plates all the time. A new range of birds was introduced recently, the Botanic Garden Birds:
They are the Ruby-Throated Hummingbird, Baltimore Oriole, Chickadee, Lesser Goldfinch, Western Bluebird, and Scarlet Tanager. Lovely birds, on dinnerplates with the Botanic Garden Border.
This is an oval plate with the Trailing Bindweed and some odds and ends that are not usually seen on regular Botanic Garden plates: 
The fern leaves look like the ones in The Compleat Angler, the small Forget-me-nots look like the ones in the Variations range.
In 1972 the original Botanic Garden range had six 13 inch oval plates and one 15 inch platter with the African Daisy:
The motifs on the 13 inch platters were the same as on the first 8 inch salad plates: Woody Nightshade, Water Melon, Red Pepper, Night Flowering Cactus, Dog Rose and Eastern Hyacinth.
Of two of these platters I also have an 11 inch version the Water melon and the Dog Rose:
The Woody Nightshade has a version without the extra butterflies:
There is another early 15 inch platter with a lovely double version of the Mexican Lily:
The African Daisy platter later appeared in a version with more flowers, in brighter colours:
There are also 11 inch oval plates, featuring the salad plate motifs:
The motifs here are Treasure Flower, Dog Rose, Water Melon, Eastern Hyacinth and White Gum Cistus.
Another 11 inch oval plate features the Slender Columbine:
Portmeirion also produced 19 inch fish platters with spectacular motifs. The oldest was a combination of the Blue Passion Flower and the Dog Rose:
Later the fish platter featured the Austrian Lily, which was only produced from 1990 to 1993:
Aren’t they wonderful?
