Wellcome uses cookies.

Read our policy
Wellcome Collection homepage
All
Stories
Images
Catalogue
Events
31 results
  • Cactus cochenillifer : cierge a cochenille / par P.J. Redouté.
  • Cactus cochenillifer : cierge a cochenille / par P.J. Redouté.
  • A flowering cactus, possibly a night-flowering cactus (Epiphyllum species). Coloured etching, c. 1815.
  • Darwin : giant tortoise and cactus finch.
  • Prickly pear cactus (Opuntia species): stem and flowers. Aquatint, c.1823.
  • Agriculture: men gathering insects from cactus plants, then processing them. Engraving.
  • A thicket of cactus (Cereus dyckii) in Guatemala. Wood engraving, c. 1867.
  • Eight plants, including an orchid, a magnolia and a cactus: flowering stems. Coloured etching, c. 1834.
  • Turk's cap cactus (Melocactus communis): flowering plant. Coloured etching by J. Pass, c. 1800, after J. Ihle.
  • Seven plants, including two orchids and a cactus: flowering stems and floral segments. Coloured etching, c. 1837.
  • Above, an insect, a monkey, a plant (bromelia), a shell and three birds; below, a beetle, a cactus and two plants. Engraving by Heath.
  • Cochineal cactus (Nopalea cochenillifera) with insects that feed on it, including the cochineal insect (Dactylopius coccus). Coloured etching by J. Pass, c. 1801, after J. Ihle.
  • Opuntia humifusa Raf. Cactaceae Eastern prickly pear, Indian fig. Distribution: Eastern North America. Stearns (1801) reports 'OPUNTIA a species of cactus. The fruit is called the prickly pear. If eaten it turns the urine and milk in women's breast red'. This is likely to be Opuntia robusta. The ripe fruits are reported edible, raw, and the leaf pads also, either raw or cooked. The fine spines, glochids, cause severe skin irritation so should be wiped off or burnt off prior to cooking and eating. Moerman (1998) reports that O. hemifusa was widely used by Native American tribes for wounds, burns, snakebite, warts (fruit), and as a mordant for dyes used on leather. Widely used, with the spines removed, as a famine food, and dried for winter use. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Opuntia humifusa Raf. Cactaceae Eastern prickly pear, Indian fig. Distribution: Eastern North America. Stearns (1801) reports 'OPUNTIA a species of cactus. The fruit is called the prickly pear. If eaten it turns the urine and milk in women's breast red'. This is likely to be Opuntia robusta. The ripe fruits are reported edible, raw, and the leaf pads also, either raw or cooked. The fine spines, glochids, cause severe skin irritation so should be wiped off or burnt off prior to cooking and eating. Moerman (1998) reports that O. hemifusa was widely used by Native American tribes for wounds, burns, snakebite, warts (fruit), and as a mordant for dyes used on leather. Widely used, with the spines removed, as a famine food, and dried for winter use. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Euphorbia milii Des Moul. Euphorbiaceae. Crown of Thorns - so called because of its very spiny stems. Distribution: Madagascar. The latex contains a copper-containing amine oxidase, a lectin, lipase, peroxidase, and a diamine oxidase. In vitro the latex is synergistic with ketoconazole against Candida albicans (thrush). All Euphorbia have a toxic white latex, and in Europe this has been used as a folk remedy to treat warts. It can cause skin allergies and the smoke from burning them is toxic. the genus named for Euphorbus (fl. circa 10 BC – 20 AD), the Greek physician to the Berber King Juba II (c. 50 BC – 23 AD) of Numidia, Euphorbia milii is one of the tropical spurges, with fierce, cactus-like spines, grown as a house plant. The sap of spurges is used in folk medicine for treating warts (not very effective), and, historically, as a purgative - the word spurge being derived from the French word for purgation. The sap (probably dried) was administered inside a fig because it is so corrosive that it would otherwise burn the mouth and oesophagus – a technique used today, rather more subtly, with ‘enteric coated’ medications. The sap contains a potential anti-leukaemic chemical, lasiodoplin, and is also used in drainage ditches to kill the snails which carry the parasitic trematode which causes fasciolaris. It does not kill the fish. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • A prickly pear (Opuntia species): flowering and fruiting stem. Coloured etching by J. Pass, c. 1800, after J. Ihle.
  • Iris, Aesculapius and Flora routing death. Mezzotint by J.J. Haid, 1737, after J.W. Baumgartner.
  • T. Green, The universal herbal
  • A plantation of cochineal cacti (Nopalea cochenillifera) with workers gathering and preparing cochineal. Engraving.
  • Seven plants, including a lupin and an aster: flowering stems. Coloured etching, c. 1833.
  • Seven plants, including two cacti (Echinocactus species): flowering stems and floral segments. Coloured etching, c. 1837.
  • Seven plants, including three orchids and two cacti: flowering stems and floral segments. Coloured etching, c. 1837.
  • The pain of it all, emotional cancer journey, artwork
  • Seven plants, including two orchids and a poppy: flowering stems. Coloured etching, c. 1833.
  • Eight plants, including two orchids and two hawthorns: flowering stems. Coloured etching, c. 1837.
  • Workers harvesting sago in a tropical wooded glade with a bilimbi tree, a sago palm, a durian tree and a pepper plant. Engraving, c. 1777.
  • Five large cacti and a sweet potato plant (Ipomoea batatas) in a tropical landscape. Etching, c. 1671.
  • Aloe vera
  • Darwin : (miniature sheet) : Galapagos Islands surveyed by Captain Robert FitzRoy and the officers of the HMS Beagle, 1835.
  • Cartoon figures using condoms in a variety of different ways; advertising sexual advice services offered by youth health workers in Hagen and the AIDS-Hilfe Hagen e.V. Lithograph after Thilo Krapp.