Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.
Loading... The flower chain : the early discovery of Australian plantsby Jill Duchess of Hamilton and Brandon
None Loading...
Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. no reviews | add a review
No library descriptions found. |
Current DiscussionsNone
Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)580.994Natural sciences and mathematics Plants Botany Biography; History By Place PacificLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
Is this you?Become a LibraryThing Author. |
The book is titled "the Flower Chain" and is written as if all the small contributions added together to initially establish a chain of linkages with Europe and eventually a whole interlinked network. Some characters of particular significance are Joseph Banks. Despite his reputation as a bit of a dilettante he really seems to have been a major force behind much of the systemic collection and knowledge about Australian (and other ) plants. I was also impressed with Bank's role in having Ferdinand Bauer (artist) and Robert Brown (botanist and discoverer of Brownian motion) as part of the complement of people travelling with Flinders on the Investigator. Both pretty impressive people and great contributors. Ferdinand Bauer was amazing. He took countless sketches and noted the colouration against his set of 999 "standard colours" so he could later paint the subject accurately. And he did it with astonishing accuracy....even where colours merge fro one into another. (See the publication "Painting by Numbers").
Lots of interesting illustrations and lots of interesting history. (I didn't know that William Dampier was one of the first significant collectors of plants from North Western Australia. Also the sheer difficulty of keeping plants alive when they were subject to salt spray and scorching heat etc on the long voyages back to Europe). Some interesting stuff about the important role the Empress Josephine played with her garden at Malmaison in introducing and reproducing plants in Europe. She also employed the illustrator Redoute ...I saw his famous rose paintings in Japan. He was a very good painter....and obviously prolific.
In some ways, it's a bit disjointed as a narrative. But that kind of comes with the reality of the growth in knowledge about Australian Flora. (Generally ignored by governors in the colony who were most concerned with survival and didn't really see the native plants as offering anything of value).
Four stars from me. ( )