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  • Podcast

Wetland

In this episode, JC and her contributors invite you to rethink the idea of of boggy marshlands, and see the ecological health, biodiversity, and carbon capturing benefits of these misunderstood spaces.

  • Article

The men who meddled with nature

The ‘acclimatisation societies’ of the 19th century sought to ‘improve’ on the natural world by releasing non-native species into the wild. The effects were disastrous.

  • Article

Sharing Nature: Parks for people

Paula Broom’s photograph of Sydney’s Centennial Park shows the complexity and joy we find in urban greenery.

  • Article

Louis Wain’s cryptic cats

Once famous for his quirky cat illustrations, today Louis Wain is often portrayed as a ‘psychotic’ artist whose illness can be mapped out through his drawings. Here Bryony Benge-Abbott takes a more rounded view.

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Images

  • Giant water lilies (Victoria amazonica) on a lake bordered by two Guianan men and plants. Coloured lithographic reproduction of an engraving by M. Gauci, c. 1814, after C. Bentley.
  • Giant water lily (Victoria amazonica): entire flowering plant with floating leaves. Coloured lithograph by W. Fitch, c. 1845, after himself.
  • Giant water lily (Victoria amazonica): twenty one different anatomical segments of the plant. Coloured lithograph by W. Fitch, c. 1845, after himself.
  • Serratula tinctoria subsp. seoanei (Willk.)M.Lainz Asteraceae. Saw-wort (in the USA called Dyer's plumeless saw-wort). Distribution: Europe. Named after Dr Victor Lopez Seoane (1832-1900) a Spanish naturalist and physician who was Professor of Physics, Chemistry and Natural History in Corunna. He attained a certain infamy in that three of the subspecies of birds which he published as new discoveries were in leaflets dated 1870 and 1891 but were actually published in 1894, the discovery of which rendered two of his discoveries attributable to others (Ferrer, in Ingenium 7:345-377 (2001). This plant was described by Heinrich Willkomm in 1899 as Serratula seoanei, but M. Lainz, in 1979, decided it was merely a subspecies of Serratula tinctoria, a plant described by Linnaeus (1753). Linnaeus based his description on a plant with a woodcut in Dodoens' Pemptades (1583), saying it had pinnate leaves. However, that woodcut is of two different plants, and when re-used by Gerard (1633) he pointed out that Tabernamontanus (1625) had a woodcut of them and a third plant all with leaves varying from just pinnate to entire. Whatever, the leaves on Serratula tinctorius subsp. seoanei are very distinct, but while pinnate the leaflets are exceedingly narrowly and deeply dissected, Gerard (1633) writes that it is 'wonderfully commended to be most singular [useful] for wounds, ruptures, burstings, and such like...' It is a dye plant, containing luteolin, the same yellow dye as is present in Reseda luteola (source of the dye 'weld'). Seoane also has a viper, Vipera seoanei, named after him
  • Giant water lily (Victoria amazonica): an opening flower with surrounding leaves and buds. Coloured lithograph by W. Fitch, c. 1845, after himself.
  • Giant water lily (Victoria amazonica): an expanded flower with surrounding leaves and buds. Coloured lithograph by W. Fitch, c. 1845, after himself.
  • The flower of a giant water lily (Victoria amazonica) Coloured lithograph, c. 1850, after C. Rosenberg.
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