ClegExhib
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- Bu səhifədəki naviqasiya:
- 13. Actiniopteris radiata
- 16. Leonotis nepetifolia
- 18. Portulaca quadrifida
- 24. Carthamus tinctorius
- 28. Calophyllum polyanthum
12. Nelumbo nucifera Gaertner (NELUMBONACEAE) Egyptian bean (Cleghorn cat.), sacred lotus; kamala, thaavare (Kan); ambal, thaamarai (Tam); ambuja, padma (Sans). There are two members of the genus Nelumbo, a yellow-flowered one (N. lutea) from Central America, and the one depicted here, which is widespread in the Indian Subcontinent and SE Asia into Australia. From the beauty of the flower, often springing from muddy water, it is sacred to both Hindus and Buddhists, the former believing it to have sprung from the navel of Vishnu. The spirally thickened water conducting elements extracted from leaf-stalks and peduncles have been used as lamp wicks. More prosaically both seeds and rhizomes are eaten. With the advent of classifications based on DNA sequences one of the greatest surprises was to discover that the sacred lotus was not related to the waterlilies as had always been supposed, but that it was related to the plane tree (Platanus) and the family Proteaceae (including proteas and banksias), and that the similarity was due to convergent evolution – from adaptation to a similar aquatic habitat and emergent growth form. Annotations: 198/54. Nelumbiaceae. Nelumbium speciosum (Willd.) var. Rubrum. ‘thavare huvu’ [in Kannada script]. Shemoga, 15 Jul ’46. 225 x 292 mm. CN 198
Peacock’s tail; mayoora shikhi (Kan) The small number of drawings of ferns in his collection (only two in the Mysore collection) suggests that, atypically for his era, Cleghorn was certainly no sufferer from pteridomania. This was more than compensated for by Richard Henry Beddome, an army officer, who in 1857 was made Cleghorn’s senior assistant as Conservator of Forests for Madras. Beddome succeeded Cleghorn as Conservator, and contributed greatly to the study of Indian ferns (also of molluscs, and flowering plants generally), and, after Cleghorn’s retirement, Beddome continued to employ Govindoo and to publish his botanical drawings. This xerophytic (drought-resistant) fern, with its characteristic fan-shaped fronds, Beddome recorded as being ‘found all over the [Madras] presidency in dry rocky places from the sea level up to 3,500 or 4,000 feet’. It also occurs in dry parts of tropical Africa and the Mascarene Islands, and from Arabia and Yemen, through Iran into India, and also in Sri Lanka, Nepal and Burma. Annotations: 456. Polypodiaceae. Asplenium radiatum, Sw. Actiniopteris radiata, Link. Cuddoor, 6 July ’47. 233 x 293 mm. CN 456.
Trailing indigo (Cleghorn cat.), red nerinjy; kenneggilu (Kan); cheppunerungil (Tam); vasuka (Sans). Indigofera is a large genus (with more than 700 species) of the pea-flower family, and takes its name from the blue dye extracted from I. tinctoria. The species shown here is a low-growing perennial with a woody base, widespread in S and SE Asia from Pakistan eastwards to China, and throughout India, Indo-China, Indonesia to New Guinea and Australia; it is largely lowland but occurs up to 1200 metres in the Himalaya. The name pencilled on this drawing is in the hand of Robert Wight, to whom Cleghorn must have shown these drawings for identification. Linnaeus’ name I. enneaphylla is ‘illegitimate’ according to rules of modern nomenclature, so was replaced with the present one, commemorating Linnaeus, by the Pakistani botanist S.I. Ali in 1958. The plant has been used medicinally in India and Sir Whitelaw Ainslie recorded its use against scurvy, and that an infusion of the plant was diuretic and given for fevers and coughs. Ainslie, who was born in Duns (Berwickshire), was a predecessor of Cleghorn as an EIC surgeon in the Madras Presidency; he was author of the first book treating Indian medicines – his pioneering Materia Medica of Hindustan (1813). Annotations: 247/621. Fabaceae. Indigofera enneaphylla Linn. Mysore, Shemoga 4th Augt ’46. 235 x 293 mm. CN 247
234 x 288 mm. CN 289
Catmint-leaved leonotis; gantu thumbe (Kan); murandai (Tam) Leonotis is a genus of nine species named for the orange-hairy flowers that were fancifully thought to resemble lions’ ears – all are native to Africa, but this species, the only annual one, also occurs as a weed in tropical America and Asia, doubtless an ancient introduction. The species was first described by Linnaeus (in the genus Phlomis), based on an illustration and description of plants growing in the Leiden botanic garden thought to have originated in Surinam. In India it was collected on the Coromandel Coast by the Tranquebar Missionaries, and it may have been one of these, J.G. König, who sent it to Sir Joseph Banks, by whom it was introduced to Kew Gardens in 1778. It is an annual (or short-lived perennial) that can reach three metres in height, and, as noted on the drawing, occurs in disturbed habitats such as waste places, field margins and roadsides. The plant has been grown in British gardens and glasshouses but in 1839 W.J. Hooker considered ‘the plant is often too tall, and its leaves too coarse and common-looking to render it a general favourite’. Annotations: Lamiaceae. Stachydeae. Leonotis Nepetifolia R. Br. 1– Corolla densely hairy, 2– do: cut open, 3– Calyx spinous toothed, 4– Ovary 4-lobed. Abundant in waste places usually erect from 3 to 7 feet high. Shemoga, 11th Sept ’46. 228 x 290 mm. CN 210
Jacquin’s nightshade, prickly brinjal; nelagulla, raamagulla (Kan); kandangatthari (Tam); kantakaari (Sans) In the first paper that he read to the British Association, at the Edinburgh meeting of 1850, ‘On the hedge plants of India’, Cleghorn drew attention to the prevalence of spiny plants, including this species, in the drier parts of southern India, and their nuisance to travellers over open ground: ‘The prickles and spines of these plants wound the barefooted pilgrim, especially during the hot months, when the leaves having dropped off, the thorns are left bare and exposed, which renders travelling extremely difficult in some parts, as the spines are so strong as to pierce a shoe or sandal of dressed leather; and if the weary traveller seek to rest himself, he must beware as much of thorns, as of red ants, tarantulae, and other biting insects which infest the soil’. C.L. Willdenow based a new species on Indian material from India probably sent to him by one of the Tranquebar Missionaries under the Tamil name ‘kandan kattiri’ and named it after Nikolaus von Jacquin, friend of Mozart, who had illustrated it in one of his lavishly illustrated works based on plants grown in the Vienna botanic garden. Jacquin had used the Linnaean name S. virginianum, which was based on American material, but the Indian and American plants are now these are now regarded as conspecific, the species being a pantropical weed, which probably originated in the New World. Annotations: 327. Solanaceae. Solanum Jacquinii (Willd.). Gulagolakee ‘gola gauli kaayi’ [in Kannada script]. Dewarhutty, 12 Dec: 46. 230 x 296 mm CN 327
Passalaikkeerai (Tam); laghulonika (Sans) This succulent annual occurs in disturbed habitats all over warm temperate and tropical parts of the world (except Australia). As noted on this drawing it can be eaten as a vegetable, and the cultivated purslane (a variety of P. oleracea) is well known as a rich source of omega-3 fatty acids and antioxidants. The species was described and illustrated in the seventeenth century by Paul Hermann, a German physician to the Dutch EIC who made important collections and drawings (used extensively by Linnaeus) in Ceylon; he was later professor of botany at Leiden. The illustration (now taken as the type of the species) was published in Hermann’s posthumous catalogue of the Leiden botanic garden (Paradisus Batavus), under the name ‘Portulaca Corassavica lanuginosa procumbens’, meaning the ‘woolly, procumbent Portulaca of Curaçao’, suggests that the Leiden plant originated from the Dutch Antilles. The woolliness of the plant is variable, but is shown on the bottom right-hand detail – in one of the leaf axils. Linnaeus later grew the plant, from an Egyptian source, in his garden at Uppsala; the Linnaean epithet refers to the four-lobed corolla. Annotations: Portulaceae. Portulaca quadrifida Linn. Wight Ill. t. 109. t. 12. eatable mixed with Dholl &c boiled as Bagie. St Thome, 6th August 1853. 253 x 363 mm. CNS 14
Spreading hog-weed (Drury); mukuratthai (Tam) In 1753 Linnaeus described four species in a genus that he named after the great Dutch medic and botanist Hermann Boerhaave. Linnaeus had studied with Boerhaave in Leiden, as had Charles Alston, Regius Keeper of RBGE (1716–60). The genus is difficult taxonomically and is now considered to include about 20 species, mostly widespread, pantropical, annual weeds. The plant depicted here has generally been known as B. diffusa, a species based by Linnaeus on specimens from Ceylon, Jamaica, and a plate in Rheede’s Hortus Malabaricus – these are now assigned to three different species, of which this drawing shows what is known as B. coccinea, having dark pink flowers, and both terminal and lateral inflorescences. This segregate species is almost certainly among the forms described (under B. diffusa) by Heber Drury in his Useful Plants of India (1859) as, despite being a troublesome weed, having useful medicinal properties – the powdered root was used as a laxative, and an infusion against parasitic worms; it was also found a ‘good expectorant, and [has] been prescribed in asthma with marked success, given in the form of powder, decoction, and infusion’. Annotations: Nyctaginaceae. Boerhaavia. Pasture land near the sea, St Thomé, 1856. 254 x 362 mm. CNS 122
Panipayir (Tam); mudgaparni (Sans) Vigna is an important leguminous genus, to which the mung and adouki beans, and the black gram also belong. This species, with its pretty, twice-trifoliate leaves was described as Dolichos trilobatus by Linnaeus, based on an etching in a work of 1696 by Leonard Plukenet (see Display Case III). Plukenet was a London botanist and physician to Queen Mary, and author of a series of encyclopaedic botanical works, which included many species sent to him from Fort St George, the EIC headquarters in Madras. The plants were illustrated and described with long Latin phrase names – this one was called ‘Trifolium Maderaspatana, cauliculis pilosis, scandens, Passiflorae modo trilobatus’, that is ‘the three-lobed Madras clover, with small climbing hairy stems and the habit of a passionflower’ – descriptive, but hardly concise compared with Linnaeus’ pert binomial. In the RBGE library is Cleghorn’s own copy of the collected works of Plukenet, and in the herbarium is a specimen of V. trilobata collected at Fort St George by Dr Edward Bulkley in 1703 under the Tamil name ‘narry-pyetty’. This drawing was made at St Thomé only a short distance south of Fort St George. Although the seeds are tiny, this species is widely grown in the Indian Subcontinent and SE Asia (there are also records from Africa and Peru). Annotations: Fabaceae. Phaseoleae. Phaseolus triblobus? St Thome, Madras, July 1853. 253 x 364 mm. CNS 59
Nagaru thige (Tel) Cleghorn visited the Calcutta Botanic Garden in December 1855 and from the note on this drawing he used the opportunity to match some of his unknown plant drawings with the 2500 ‘Icones’ commissioned in the late eighteenth century by William Roxburgh. Although this plant had been described by Roxburgh (in the genus Robinia) his drawing shows the flowers as pink, so Cleghorn did not recognise it and took his illustration to represent an undescribed species. In 1984 this species (which occurs throughout Peninsular India, and in Thailand and the Philippines) was placed in a new genus, characterised by its unique fruits. The inner layer of the pod (the endocarp) becomes separated from the outer, dries and breaks up to form a papery wing to each of the seeds – the seeds therefore come to resemble the winged fruit, ‘samara’, of the sycamore. This handsome woody climber was introduced to the Madras Agri-Horticultural Garden by its secretary, Colonel Francis Archibald Reid (1804–62), who in 1844 had been ‘Assistant to the General Superintendent of Operations for the Suppression of Thuggee’ – he found it in what are now called the Sandur Hills, to the south of the great ruined city of Hampi. Annotations: Fabaceae. Milletia Nov. spec., not in Roxb. Drawings. Introduced from Ramanmally Hills by Col. Reid. Hort[icultural] Gard[ens], July 1853. 253 x 357 mm. CAH 27
Pineapple; anaanus (Kan); anashippazham (Tam) Although known in the West mainly for its delicious fruit, the pineapple is also the source of an important fibre known as Manilla hemp. At the 1855 Madras Exhibition ‘a series of well dressed and hackled fibres, thread, yarn, twine and tow for sting, prepared from the common Pine apple’ was exhibited by the School of Industrial Arts run by Cleghorn’s friend, another Scottish surgeon, Alexander Hunter: it was described as ‘nearly white, very soft, silky and plant’ and a ‘good substitute for flax’. The pineapple is native to South America, where it was widely cultivated before European contact, developed from a wild progenitor probably from Paraguay. It was soon taken to the Old World, and Sir George Watt, in his Dictionary of Economic Products of India, recorded that it was ‘introduced by the Portuguese into Bengal in 1594’, the precision of the date being possible as ‘its introduction is expressly mentioned by Indian authors such as Abdul Fuzl in the Ayeen Akbarí, and again by the author of Dhara Shekoih’. This exquisite drawing, with its partial colouring, emphasises the geometrical properties of the compound fruit (a fleshy syncarp) and shows the terminal tuft of leaves from which a new plant may be propagated. Annotations: Bromelia Ananas, L. Ananas sativus Schultz. Koppah, 11 Feb ’47. 232 x 293 mm. CN 379
Holy basil (Cleghorn cat.); Vishnu thulasi, Shri thulasi (Kan); nalla thulasi, thulasi (Tam). The cabinet containing the genus Ocimum is one of the most fragrant in the hebarium! The genus has about 65 species widely distributed in tropical and warm temperate parts of the world (especially Africa). The most familiar in Britain is O. basilicum, the basil much used in Mediterranean cuisine. The sacred basil (better known under its former name O. sanctum) is widespread in the Indian Subcontinent and SE Asia, reaching southern China and Australia. In 1857 Robert Brown was sent out from Edinburgh to succeed Andrew Jaffrey as head gardener at the Madras Agri-Horticultural Society. In the second edition (1866) of Brown’s Hand-book of the Trees, Shrubs and Herbaceous Plants of the garden he noted of the sacred basil that ‘the whole plant is of a dark purple colour, and has a grateful smell. The root is given in decoctions in fevers, and the juice of the leaves in catarrhal affections in children. Also an excellent remedy mixed with lime juice, in cutaneous affections, ring work &c. This plant is considered by the Brahmins as sacred to Vishnoo. The root is made into beads and worn round the neck and arms of Vishnoo-Brahmins. Cultivated in gardens and near Pagodas’. Annotations: 25. ‘thulashi’ [in Kannada script]. Labiatae. Ocimeae. Ocimum Sanctum L. Purple stalked Basil. Found abundantly in the enclosures round Hindoo temples- The juice highly esteemed as a cure for Cough. Held sacred to Vishnoo. Shemoga, 24–9–’45. 190 x 309 mm CN 25
Safflower; kusube enne kaalu, kusube (Kan); sendoorakam (Tam) The yellow florets of this member of the daisy family are widely known as an inferior substitute for (or adulterant of) saffron. In 1814, Benjamin Heyne, the official EIC Madras Naturalist, recorded its use: ‘by the natives to dye their holiday turbans and other cloths of a beautiful red: the moormen are particularly fond of this colour, though it recommends itself rather by its brilliancy than its durability’. Heber Drury in his Useful Plants of India (1859) provided further details: ‘The dried florets yield a beautiful colouring matter which attaches itself without a mordant. It is chiefly used for colouring cotton, and produces various shades of pink, rose, crimson, scarlet &c. In Bangalore silk is dyed with it, but the dye is fugitive and will not bear washing ... The flower is gathered and rubbed down into a powder, and sold in this state. When used for dyeing it is put into a cloth, and washed in cold water for a long time, to remove a yellow colouring matter. It is then boiled, and yields the pink dyeing liquid’. As noted on this drawing the plant is also cultivated (on the dry plains of Mysore) for oil, which is extracted from its seed-like fruits. The pale yellow oil used for culinary purposes, and (at least formerly) for burning in lamps. Annotations: 93. ‘kusabi’ [in Kannada script]. Matricariaceae (Cynareae D.C.). Carthamus tinctorius (Willd.). Koosumba Duk. [i.e., Dakhni], Saffron. Cultivated for the dye as also for the oil. Hurryhur, 17 Jany 1846. 231 x 295 mm CN 93
Purple thorn apple; kari ummatthi gida (Kan); visha ummatthi (Tam); dhatthoora, unmattha (Sans). A coarse herb to a metre in height; the flowers can be white or purple – formerly referred to D. alba and D. fastuosa respectively. It occurs in disturbed habitats throughout the tropics and there is no agreement over its original home. This is likely to have been New World, but its Sanskrit name, and use in Indian medicine, suggest that its occurrence long antedates the arrival of the Portuguese. Like other members of the genus the plant has gained notoriety from its poisonous alkaloids. In 1810 John Fleming, Superintendent of the Calcutta Botanic Garden, wrote: ‘the soporiferous and intoxicating qualities of the seeds are well known to the inhabitants; and it appears, from the records of the native Courts of Justice, that these seeds are still employed, for the same licentious and wicked purposes, as they were formerly’. These accusations were still being made in Cleghorn’s time and Brown in his 1866 Handbook of the Madras Garden wrote ‘a strong narcotic; in India frequently and sometimes fatally employed by thieves and others to deprive their victims of the power of resistance’; in Rajputana it was also reputed to be used, smeared on the maternal bosom, for female infanticide. Used with suitable caution, however, it has many more beneficial medicinal uses. Annotations: 9. ‘ummathi kaayi’ [in Kannada script]. Solanaceae. Datura fastuosa L. Springs up on rubbish, and seems to be one of those plants which follow man. Very common, Shemoga, 29 Augt 1845. 195 x 313 mm CN 9
Indian hemp; bhangi gida, gaanjaa gida (Kan); bhangi, ganja (Tam) This notorious, dioecious, annual herb, has two major uses: northern forms ‘subsp. sativa’ (especially male plants) are an important source of fibre, at least formerly used for ropes, fabrics (the origin of the word canvas) and paper; southern forms ‘subsp. indica’ for their narcotic resin. Heber Drury in his Useful Plants of India described the various products of the plant thus: ‘The officinal part of the Indian hemp consists of the dried flowering-tops of the female plant, from which the resin has not been removed. This is called Gunja. The resin itself, which exudes from the leaves, stem, and flowers, is called Churrus. And what is known as Bhang is the larger leaves and capsules without the stalks. The properties of Indian hemp are stimulant, sedative, and antispasmodic, often equalling opium in its effects ... Gunja has a strong aromatic and heavy odour, abounds in resin, and is sold in the form of flowering-stalks. Bhang is ... only slightly resinous: its intoxicating properties are much less. Gunja is smoked like tobacco. Bhang is not smoked, but pounded up with water into a pulp, so as to make a drink highly conducive to health, and people accustomed to it seldom get sick’. Clearly, then, as now, there have been different attitudes to its benefits to human health and from his annotation on this drawing, Cleghorn’s view tended towards the censorious. Annotations: 28. Urticaceae. Cannabieae. Cannabis sativa L. Cultivated (too much). 1– A nut, 2– Vertical section. Shemoga, 29–9–’45. 192 x 245 mm. CN 28
Chinese dodder The dodders form a cosmopolitan genus of about 145 species belonging to the same family as morning glories, from which they differ in being parasites, with reduced vegetative parts and lacking in chlorophyll, which obtain their nutrition from a vascular plant host. This species was first described in 1794 by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck from a specimen twining round a basil plant in the Jardin du Roi in Paris – it is thought that its seeds had arrived from China, mixed with those of the basil. The species has a wide distribution from Ethiopia through Afghanistan and India to China and Australia and grows on a notably wide variety of host plants. The individual shown here (of which the specimen survives in the RBGE herbarium – see Display Case I) was growing on a member of the family Acanthaceae (perhaps a species of Justicia) forming a garden hedge in St Thomé, the suburb of Madras where Cleghorn lived at this time. In South India Robert Wight recorded it on the rosy periwinkle and an Amaranthus, and J.S. Gamble on Ipomoea pes-caprae (a member of the same family, so verging on the cannibalistic); in China it is a major parasite of soybean. The seeds of the plant have been used medicinally for skin complaints (including acne and dandruff). Annotations: Cuscuta. Parasitic on an Acanthaceous Hedge. St Thomé, 12 Septr 1854. 219 x 278 mm. CNS 102
Poon spar tree; koove, ponne, siriponne hoo (Kan); pinnai, pongu (Tam) The preservation of the poon spar tree of the Western Ghats of Canara (Karnataka), was one of the major concerns of Alexander Gibson in Bombay and Cleghorn in Madras, as its timber was in great demand for making ships’ masts. Despite this, there was uncertainty over the correct botanical name of the tree that supplied this valuable commodity, and this drawing was made in order to throw light on the problem. The influential Robert Wight (followed by E.G. Balfour) considered the source of the valuable ‘poon spars’ to be Dillenia pentagyna; but Cleghorn (and Gibson) at this point knew that it was a Calophyllum, though there remained confusion over the species concerned – Cleghorn initially knew it under the name C. angustifolium of Roxburgh (a species from Penang), but it is now known to be C. polyanthum. This drawing, looking like a copy of an engraving, is likely to have been made with publication in mind. However, the annotation shows it to have been made from a dried specimen (which still exists in the RBGE herbarium – see Display Case II) sent to Cleghorn by Mr S. Müller his assistant Conservator in North Canara. Müller (unlike Cleghorn) had received a professional training in forestry, in the Black Forest of Germany. Annotations: Calophyllum. True Poon Spar from Mr S. Muller. From a dried specimen. N[orth] Canara, Feb /58. 219 x 281 mm. CNS 16 Yüklə 191 Kb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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