Plate 1
Cyrtomium fortunei J.Sm. Family – Dryopteridaceae Catharine Nicholson
Ferns first evolved in the Carboniferous period
used to seeing ferns growing in damp woodlands, on
(beginning about 360 million years ago). They were
damp rock faces and clefts in rocks and old walls.
the first land plants to possess transport tissue (xylem) and fibres strengthened with lignin and so could grow
Fern specialist Thomas Moore (1821-1887), author of
to great size unlike the earlier land plants, the mosses
Ferns of Great Britain and Ireland (1855), was Curator at
and their allies. However, although like all other land
Chelsea from 1848 until his death. In 1862/3 he built a
plants the fern life cycle has two distinct phases, one
lean-to greenhouse against the southwest wall of the
sexual involving fusion of male and female cells, and
Garden which was replaced in 1907 and has since been
one asexual involving the production of spores, the
fully restored. This is now called the Thomas Moore
fern sexual phase or prothallus consists of an
Cool Fernery and inside are grown tender ferns while in
independently-living flat sheet of green tissue only few
the shaded area outside the hardy ferns are to be found.
millimetres wide and involves the active swimming of male ‘sperm’ cells through a film of water. This
I asked Christopher Nicholson, Catharine’s widower,
requirement limits the habitat of most ferns to places
to tell us something of the way she worked to produce
where water is abundant during at least part of the
her remarkable images, always accurate but never
year or often enough in dry areas. In Europe we are
laboured. He writes:
If I had to give a brief account, I’d say something like this: that she worked in a north-facing studio, and that she had extraordinary patience. Some of her most detailed pictures must have taken four or more months each, working long hours. She always worked from life, and always insisted that she drew only what she saw. She worked either sitting down or standing – standing for large pictures – with the paper taped to a wooden board. At the start of each drawing, especially if it involved complicated subject matter, she would make very light pencil marks on the paper. I assume that these were later rubbed out after she had begun to work in ink. The pen that she used was a Rotring rapidograph, with a 0.10 mm nib – the thinnest possible. She used proportional dividers. She had a magnifying glass to hand, but she used it only to look more closely at the plant subject;
2
she never drew through the magnifying glass. She had very good eyes, and also a very steady hand, which enabled her to achieve a great lightness of touch. This lightness of touch is what admirers of her work often mention. I think – and it’s not unconnected - that she also had a strong core of inner belief in what she was doing. She sometimes found that certain plants presented particular challenges, but she was in the end immensely confident in her art. This is not particularly evident in the three fern pictures owned by the Chelsea Physic Garden, but all her later work, especially after she fell ill, was informed by a vision of nature in relation to time and space. For her the work was akin to spiritual meditation, which is why she was happy for it to take as long as it did. She never hurried. If something went wrong with a drawing, she would abandon it.
Plate 1
Cyrtomium fortunei J.Sm. Family – Dryopteridaceae Catharine Nicholson
Ferns first evolved in the Carboniferous period
used to seeing ferns growing in damp woodlands, on
(beginning about 360 million years ago). They were
damp rock faces and clefts in rocks and old walls.
the first land plants to possess transport tissue (xylem) and fibres strengthened with lignin and so could grow
Fern specialist Thomas Moore (1821-1887), author of
to great size unlike the earlier land plants, the mosses
Ferns of Great Britain and Ireland (1855), was Curator at
and their allies. However, although like all other land
Chelsea from 1848 until his death. In 1862/3 he built a
plants the fern life cycle has two distinct phases, one
lean-to greenhouse against the southwest wall of the
sexual involving fusion of male and female cells, and
Garden which was replaced in 1907 and has since been
one asexual involving the production of spores, the
fully restored. This is now called the Thomas Moore
fern sexual phase or prothallus consists of an
Cool Fernery and inside are grown tender ferns while in
independently-living flat sheet of green tissue only few
the shaded area outside the hardy ferns are to be found.
millimetres wide and involves the active swimming of male ‘sperm’ cells through a film of water. This
I asked Christopher Nicholson, Catharine’s widower,
requirement limits the habitat of most ferns to places
to tell us something of the way she worked to produce
where water is abundant during at least part of the
her remarkable images, always accurate but never
year or often enough in dry areas. In Europe we are
laboured. He writes:
If I had to give a brief account, I’d say something like this: that she worked in a north-facing studio, and that she had extraordinary patience. Some of her most detailed pictures must have taken four or more months each, working long hours. She always worked from life, and always insisted that she drew only what she saw. She worked either sitting down or standing – standing for large pictures – with the paper taped to a wooden board. At the start of each drawing, especially if it involved complicated subject matter, she would make very light pencil marks on the paper. I assume that these were later rubbed out after she had begun to work in ink. The pen that she used was a Rotring rapidograph, with a 0.10 mm nib – the thinnest possible. She used proportional dividers. She had a magnifying glass to hand, but she used it only to look more closely at the plant subject;
2
she never drew through the magnifying glass. She had very good eyes, and also a very steady hand, which enabled her to achieve a great lightness of touch. This lightness of touch is what admirers of her work often mention. I think – and it’s not unconnected - that she also had a strong core of inner belief in what she was doing. She sometimes found that certain plants presented particular challenges, but she was in the end immensely confident in her art. This is not particularly evident in the three fern pictures owned by the Chelsea Physic Garden, but all her later work, especially after she fell ill, was informed by a vision of nature in relation to time and space. For her the work was akin to spiritual meditation, which is why she was happy for it to take as long as it did. She never hurried. If something went wrong with a drawing, she would abandon it.
Plate 3
Ginkgo biloba L. Family – Ginkgoaceae Alister Mathews
This plant and those shown plate 4, Taxus baccata
discovered until the late nineteenth century by a
and plate 5, Ephedra distachya, produce seeds
Japanese botanist. The females produce seeds with a
(unlike the ferns figured in the first two plates)
fleshy outer coat rich in butyric acid which, when they
however they do not produce flowers nor are their
drop, rots to a slimy rancid mass with the nauseating
seeds are enclosed in fruits, unlike the flowering
odour of vomit. So it is only the males which are used
plants in the remainder of this book.
for street planting although there are well documented cases of older males developing female branches.
The maidenhair tree has no close living relatives but is
Male trees are created for the trade by grafting male
very similar to fossils dating back 270 million years.
twigs onto seedling root stock. The Physic Garden
Its origin is in eastern China and it has long been
has a tree of each sex. In autumn the males tend to
grown in temple enclosures there and in Japan, first
drop their leaves, which by then have turned a rich
being noticed in a Japanese temple in 1690 by the
buttery yellow, earlier than the females.
botanist Engelbert Kaempfer. Linnaeus named the species in 1771 based on Kaempfer’s specimens and
The centres of the seeds are eaten in the Far East,
text which had included a slightly faulty transliteration
sometimes after being roasted and removal of the hard
of the Japanese name giving us ‘ginkgo.’ Kaempfer’s
inner wall, sometimes cooked in soups and desserts,
illustration is partly incorrect and is also incomplete so
but they may be toxic if consumed in too great
that Linnaeus was not certain of the ginkgo’s
quantity. The flesh of the part eaten has a distinct
relationships to the plants he knew. Kaempfer’s
umami (‘savoury’) flavour which is quite persistent and
specimen material still exists in the Hans Sloane
not pleasant to all western tastes. The fatty outer layer
herbarium at the Natural History Museum. Some
can cause contact dermatitis in some people so care
cultivated specimens in China are estimated to be
is necessary in preparing the seeds for food.
one thousand years old, whilst groups of trees in some apparently truly wild populations may be as old
Ginkgo leaf extracts contain a mix of potentially useful
as three thousand years. Ginkgo is widely planted in
pharmacological agents. There is well-documented
the west as an amenity tree. It exists as separate
evidence that ginkgo extracts slow the progress of
male and female plants whose sex is controlled, as in
dementia in patients who already have it, but do not
mammals, by sex chromosomes in the cell nuclei.
prevent dementia in healthy patients. In addition, fairly
Reproduction involves sperm cells actively swimming
large doses of extract seem to improve attention in
down a pollen tube formed after the pollen lands on
healthy patients almost immediately after administration.
the female ovules. This primitive mechanism was not
However, some analyses contradict these findings.
6
photoshop these details up to here to enable top pic to be bigger
Plate 3
Ginkgo biloba L. Family – Ginkgoaceae Alister Mathews
This plant and those shown plate 4, Taxus baccata
discovered until the late nineteenth century by a
and plate 5, Ephedra distachya, produce seeds
Japanese botanist. The females produce seeds with a
(unlike the ferns figured in the first two plates)
fleshy outer coat rich in butyric acid which, when they
however they do not produce flowers nor are their
drop, rots to a slimy rancid mass with the nauseating
seeds are enclosed in fruits, unlike the flowering
odour of vomit. So it is only the males which are used
plants in the remainder of this book.
for street planting although there are well documented cases of older males developing female branches.
The maidenhair tree has no close living relatives but is
Male trees are created for the trade by grafting male
very similar to fossils dating back 270 million years.
twigs onto seedling root stock. The Physic Garden
Its origin is in eastern China and it has long been
has a tree of each sex. In autumn the males tend to
grown in temple enclosures there and in Japan, first
drop their leaves, which by then have turned a rich
being noticed in a Japanese temple in 1690 by the
buttery yellow, earlier than the females.
botanist Engelbert Kaempfer. Linnaeus named the species in 1771 based on Kaempfer’s specimens and
The centres of the seeds are eaten in the Far East,
text which had included a slightly faulty transliteration
sometimes after being roasted and removal of the hard
of the Japanese name giving us ‘ginkgo.’ Kaempfer’s
inner wall, sometimes cooked in soups and desserts,
illustration is partly incorrect and is also incomplete so
but they may be toxic if consumed in too great
that Linnaeus was not certain of the ginkgo’s
quantity. The flesh of the part eaten has a distinct
relationships to the plants he knew. Kaempfer’s
umami (‘savoury’) flavour which is quite persistent and
specimen material still exists in the Hans Sloane
not pleasant to all western tastes. The fatty outer layer
herbarium at the Natural History Museum. Some
can cause contact dermatitis in some people so care
cultivated specimens in China are estimated to be
is necessary in preparing the seeds for food.
one thousand years old, whilst groups of trees in some apparently truly wild populations may be as old
Ginkgo leaf extracts contain a mix of potentially useful
as three thousand years. Ginkgo is widely planted in
pharmacological agents. There is well-documented
the west as an amenity tree. It exists as separate
evidence that ginkgo extracts slow the progress of
male and female plants whose sex is controlled, as in
dementia in patients who already have it, but do not
mammals, by sex chromosomes in the cell nuclei.
prevent dementia in healthy patients. In addition, fairly
Reproduction involves sperm cells actively swimming
large doses of extract seem to improve attention in
down a pollen tube formed after the pollen lands on
healthy patients almost immediately after administration.
the female ovules. This primitive mechanism was not
However, some analyses contradict these findings.
6
photoshop these details up to here to enable top pic to be bigger
Plate 5
Ephedra distachya L. Family – Ephedraceae Barbara McLean
This strange plant, the joint-pine, has its sexes on
cultivated commercially in China for the extraction of
separate plants. It is found from Portugal to the
these compounds which appear most commonly in
Balkans and grows to an altitude of 1100 metres. Its
over-the-counter decongestants (for instance the
form is a low shrub looking a little like broom (Cytisus)
brand ‘Sudafed’) and with other components in
though it will climb over other vegetation in the right
remedies for relieving symptoms of the common cold.
conditions. The painting shows a male plant. The
Because they increase blood pressure and open
female produces seeds covered by a juicy, dull
bronchial pathways these alkaloids have been used in
pinkish-red coat and is very attractive as a result.
attempts to boost athletic performance but without
Four species of Ephedra are found in Europe and the
scientific evidence of any beneficial effects. Their use
genus is found as far east as China where it has been
in a sporting context is banned.
used medicinally for the past 5000 years. E.
gerardiana is used in Nepal to treat asthma and
It has been thought that preparations of Ephedra were
bronchial diseases.
at least one component of the Vedic and Zoroastrian drink soma, used in a religious context to induce
In the west its pharmacological value was
alertness and awareness. Some consider other
appreciated with the discovery of the alkaloids
components to have included psycho-active fungi,
ephedrine and pseudoephedrine (which are not
but in the absence of appropriate evidence it is
present in all species). Today Ephedra species are
impossible comment further.
10
Plate 5
Ephedra distachya L. Family – Ephedraceae Barbara McLean
This strange plant, the joint-pine, has its sexes on
cultivated commercially in China for the extraction of
separate plants. It is found from Portugal to the
these compounds which appear most commonly in
Balkans and grows to an altitude of 1100 metres. Its
over-the-counter decongestants (for instance the
form is a low shrub looking a little like broom (Cytisus)
brand ‘Sudafed’) and with other components in
though it will climb over other vegetation in the right
remedies for relieving symptoms of the common cold.
conditions. The painting shows a male plant. The
Because they increase blood pressure and open
female produces seeds covered by a juicy, dull
bronchial pathways these alkaloids have been used in
pinkish-red coat and is very attractive as a result.
attempts to boost athletic performance but without
Four species of Ephedra are found in Europe and the
scientific evidence of any beneficial effects. Their use
genus is found as far east as China where it has been
in a sporting context is banned.
used medicinally for the past 5000 years. E.
gerardiana is used in Nepal to treat asthma and
It has been thought that preparations of Ephedra were
bronchial diseases.
at least one component of the Vedic and Zoroastrian drink soma, used in a religious context to induce
In the west its pharmacological value was
alertness and awareness. Some consider other
appreciated with the discovery of the alkaloids
components to have included psycho-active fungi,
ephedrine and pseudoephedrine (which are not
but in the absence of appropriate evidence it is
present in all species). Today Ephedra species are
impossible comment further.
10
Plate 34
Rhododendron fortunei Lindl. Family – Ericaceae Maggy Fitzpatrick
The genus Rhododendron in the Ericaceae or heather
William Thiselton-Dyer. He had been appointed by
family has about 1000 species of which 650 grow in
Kew’s Director Joseph Dalton Hooker in 1875 and had
China where it is the largest genus. New Guinea has
married Hooker’s daughter Harriet.
155 endemic species. The rhododendron introduced to Britain that has The rhododendron in this painting grows in Chinese
escaped and is familiar in many acid soil areas is R. x
forests at altitudes of 600 – 2000 metres. It was
superponticum. This is a complex hybrid swarm of
described by John Lindley (Praefectus Horti of
several species including R. ponticum. The latter is
Chelsea Physic Garden 1836 - 1853) in the
widely distributed, including in the Pontic mountains of
Gardeners’ Chronicle of 1859. He named it for Robert
northern Turkey, where it has found use in traditional
Fortune (Curator of the Garden 1846 - 1848). Fortune
medicine for relief of toothache, rheumatic pain and in
(born 1812) was sent to China in 1843 by his
the treatment of inflammatory conditions. Well
employer the Royal Horticultural Society. He
designed laboratory trials have shown extracts of this
discovered this species on a later visit in 1855 and
species to have real effects in reducing markers of
sent seed back to Glendinning’s nursery in Turnham
inflammation and pain, possibly by the mediation of
Green, near Chiswick. Plants raised from these seeds
flavones in the tissues. However, R. x superponticum is
were auctioned in 1859 and proved to be the first
toxic and ingestion of its leaves by horses can lead to
hardy rhododendron to be introduced from China.
their death. The pollen and nectar of both R. x
This species has very fragrant flowers and has been
superponticum and R. luteum, a species found in the
used as a parent in breeding of many hybrids. Two
Caucasus, N.E.Turkey and Eastern Europe, contain
produced about 1880 by John Luscombe of Lower
grayantoxins, a group of four poisonous molecules
Coombe Royal in Devon were named ‘Mrs
which can accumulate in honey. Cases of poisoning of
W.T.Thiselton-Dyer’ and ‘Frances Thiselton-Dyer’ for
humans by this ‘mad’ honey have been documented
the wife and daughter of the Deputy Director of Kew,
from classical times through to the present.
68
Plate 34
Rhododendron fortunei Lindl. Family – Ericaceae Maggy Fitzpatrick
The genus Rhododendron in the Ericaceae or heather
William Thiselton-Dyer. He had been appointed by
family has about 1000 species of which 650 grow in
Kew’s Director Joseph Dalton Hooker in 1875 and had
China where it is the largest genus. New Guinea has
married Hooker’s daughter Harriet.
155 endemic species. The rhododendron introduced to Britain that has The rhododendron in this painting grows in Chinese
escaped and is familiar in many acid soil areas is R. x
forests at altitudes of 600 – 2000 metres. It was
superponticum. This is a complex hybrid swarm of
described by John Lindley (Praefectus Horti of
several species including R. ponticum. The latter is
Chelsea Physic Garden 1836 - 1853) in the
widely distributed, including in the Pontic mountains of
Gardeners’ Chronicle of 1859. He named it for Robert
northern Turkey, where it has found use in traditional
Fortune (Curator of the Garden 1846 - 1848). Fortune
medicine for relief of toothache, rheumatic pain and in
(born 1812) was sent to China in 1843 by his
the treatment of inflammatory conditions. Well
employer the Royal Horticultural Society. He
designed laboratory trials have shown extracts of this
discovered this species on a later visit in 1855 and
species to have real effects in reducing markers of
sent seed back to Glendinning’s nursery in Turnham
inflammation and pain, possibly by the mediation of
Green, near Chiswick. Plants raised from these seeds
flavones in the tissues. However, R. x superponticum is
were auctioned in 1859 and proved to be the first
toxic and ingestion of its leaves by horses can lead to
hardy rhododendron to be introduced from China.
their death. The pollen and nectar of both R. x
This species has very fragrant flowers and has been
superponticum and R. luteum, a species found in the
used as a parent in breeding of many hybrids. Two
Caucasus, N.E.Turkey and Eastern Europe, contain
produced about 1880 by John Luscombe of Lower
grayantoxins, a group of four poisonous molecules
Coombe Royal in Devon were named ‘Mrs
which can accumulate in honey. Cases of poisoning of
W.T.Thiselton-Dyer’ and ‘Frances Thiselton-Dyer’ for
humans by this ‘mad’ honey have been documented
the wife and daughter of the Deputy Director of Kew,
from classical times through to the present.
68