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Stories

  • Article

Cataloguing Audrey

Work begins in earnest to restore order to the archive Audrey Amiss kept of the minutest happenings in her life. Like detectives, the archivists search for subtle clues to chronology in the mass of materials.

  • Article

Hunting lost plants in botanical collections

A bark specimen at Kew recalls the story of a South American man who harvested the most potent source of the only effective malaria treatment available in the late 1800s. Killed for his work and forgotten by history, Manuel Mamani was a victim of the colonial juggernaut.

  • Article

Indian botanicals and heritage wars

Colonial botanical texts, as astonishingly beautiful as they are, may cast very dark shadows.

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Images

  • Thirteen examples of different types and arrangements of flower stamens. Chromolithograph, c. 1850.
  • A collection of flowers in ornamental arrangement with garland, urn and cherubs. Etching by J. Edwards, c.1790, after himself.
  • Pink flowers, possibly chrysanthemums, arranged in a bottle. Watercolour attributed to M. C. Stopes, 1898.
  • Two men in a domestic setting, one of them arranging flowers. Photographic postcard, ca. 1910.
  • Two men in a domestic setting, one of them arranging flowers. Photographic postcard, ca. 1910.
  • A courtesan arranging a flower in her hair. Gouache painting by an Indian artist, 1800s.
  • A Spanish woman arranging her hair with flowers at her dressing table; another woman assists by passing her flowers. Coloured lithograph after H. Leloir.
  • Zantedeschia aethiopica (L)Spreng. Calla lily, Arum lily. Half hardy annual. Distribution: South Africa. The genus name commemorates Giovanni Zantedeschi (1773-1846) an Italian physician and botanist. Born in Molina he studied medicine in Verona and Padua. He corresponded with the German botanist, Kurt Sprengel, who named the genus Zantedeschia in his honour in 1826, separating it from Calla, where, as C. aethiopica, it had been previously described by Linnaeus. He had broad interests, including the effect of different parts of the spectrum of light on plant growth, reporting in 1843, that red, orange and yellow light are heliotropically inactive. The botanic museum in Molina is dedicated to his memory. Aethiopica, merely means 'African'. The leaves are used as a warm poultice for headaches in ‘muthi’ medicine. It has become an invasive weed in parts of Australia. It was introduced, as a greenhouse plant, to Europe in the mid-17th century, where the long lasting flowers are popular in flower arranging and for weddings and funerals – a curious combination (Oakeley, 2012). Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Flowers and leaves in a still-life. Watercolour by L. Handy(?), 1878.
  • Floral bouquet. Engraving.
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