An exploration party under the command of James Kingston Tuckey had been sent to Africa in 1816 to establish whether the stretches of river at this time named the Niger River and the Congo River were one river or two.

The expedition had failed dismally: within a few months of reaching the river, many of the party were dead, including Tuckey and the expedition botanist Christen Smith (also known as Christian Smith and Chetian Smith).

The botanical assistant, David Lockhart, had survived, and had eventually returned a collection of around six hundred plant species to Joseph Banks, who turns the collection over to Brown to arrange it, and see what might be published based on it.