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Squash, Cucurbita pepo, a Central American fruit that inspires generousity.

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© Aislinn Adams 2008   Squash, Cucurbita pepo.

Celebrating the arrival of squash.

Squash season is here so this week I’m posting a botanical illustration to celebrate its arrival. When I illustrated this black and white illustration for the “Digging In” gardening column of the Washington Post I didn’t have time to research its story. Writing blogs about my botanical illustrations allows me time to research my subject in more depth- a very enjoyable endeavor.

Sorting out the different kinds of squash can take a while. They are loosely divided into two groups – summer or winter squash. Squash, also called marrow or pumpkin, usually refers to four species of the genus Cucurbita– C. maxima, C. mixta, C. moschata and C. pepo. The summer squash varieties have thinner skins and can be eaten raw whereas the winter squash usually have tougher skins and need to be cooked. The botanical illustration above, Cucurbita pepo, is a summer squash and includes such varieties as standard field pumpkins, small pie pumpkins, acorn squash, vegetable spaghetti, pattypan, summer crookneck and zucchini (also known as courgette).

There’s no waste on a squash!

One can eat nearly all parts of the plant. Apart from the fruit, squash seeds can be eaten directly, ground into a paste, or pressed for vegetable oil. The shoots, leaves and tendrils can be eaten as greens. The blossoms too are an important part of Native American cooking and are also used in other parts of the world.

A fascinating journey!

Little did I realize when I began to research squash that it would lead me on such a journey. So much so that I am now hard put to keep this blog entry short. There is enough material in what I’ve learned for a month of blog posts but I don’t have a month of squash illustrations. I will have to save some of the squash’s story for later blog posts and new botanical illustrations.

Central American caves, the Wampanoeg people and a Patuxet named Squanto.

The more I read about squash, the deeper the story goes. I travel from caves in central America, where archaeologists found 8000-10,000 year-old squash seed (Cucurbita pepo), to the Wampanoag tribe of New England and a Patuxet named Squanto (or Tisquantum) who, despite being captured and sold as a slave to the Spanish and later regaining his freedom and finding his way back to his homeland, helped Plymouth colonists survive those first harsh winters in New England by teaching them how to cultivate corn, squash and beans.

The “Three Sisters”- a clever combination.

The “Three Sisters”- corn, squash and beans- were the main indigenous plants used for agriculture in the Americas.  The corn provides a climbing structure for the beans and shade for the squash, the beans fix nitrogen into the soil, and the squash spreads across the ground providing cover from weeds while keeping the soil moist.

Origin of the name squash.

The word squash comes from the Native American word askutasquash: a Narrangansett word meaning ‘a green thing eaten raw’. Narragansett, an Algonquin language, is related to the Massachusett and Wampanoeg languages.

The important role of Wampanoeg women as farmers.

Squash was also a staple of the Wampanoeg diet. Wampanoeg women were responsible for farming and fruit and nut gathering. This meant they provided up to 75% of all the food needed in Wampanoeg societies (Wikipedia [4] ). The importance of their role as food providers is reflected in the status they enjoyed in their communities: land was passed down through women i.e. matrilineally, and they often held leadership positions. As it was the women who grew the food they, along with Squanto, must have been responsible for teaching the Plymouth colonists how to grow the “Three Sisters” during those first few critical years.

The next time you pick up a squash, pause a moment to consider it’s long and bountiful history: the generosity of the Wampanoeg people who shared this food willingly, and nature’s generosity in providing us with such a nourishing food for over 10,000 years.

Aislinn Adams

A Botanical Illustration That Helps me get my Turnips Straight!

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© Aislinn Adams  Turnip, Brassica rapa.

A Botanical illustration of a vegetable with a very old pedigree, turnip, Brassica rapa.

I chose the theme of fruit and vegetables for my June blogs but I have so many botanical illustrations to choose from my ten years illustrating the “Digging In” gardening column for the Washington Post that I’ve decided to continue this theme into July. So far too I’ve written only about fruits though several have been regarded as vegetables- see my blogs on plum tomatoes and sweet peppers. This week’s botanical illustration is of a true vegetable with a very old pedigree, turnip, Brassica rapa.

Turnips, Swedish turnips, or rutabaga?

There are several different vegetables originating from this species including Oil-seed turnip rape and many varieties of Chinese cabbage. Brassica rapa originates from the wild turnip, Brassica campestris. This turnip should not be confused with the Swedish turnip, Brassica napus, also known as swedes or rutabaga. The Swedish turnip is a winter vegetable and the one I think of when I hear the word turnip. It’s the one I associate with my childhood. I remember my mother buying it in the local ‘green grocers’: as vegetable shops were called then in Ireland. That Swedish turnip variety was about six inches in height: a solid, purple-skinned taproot, usually round in shape. I also remember it being difficult to chop. We ate it boiled and mashed with some butter and maybe a bit of parsley for garnish. The turnip, Brassica rapa, though similar in shape, is a ‘softer’ tuberous vegetable and easier to prepare in my opinion.

The Irish origin of the Halloween ‘Jack-o-lantern’

I also remember struggling to ‘carve’ out the inside of the swede turnip one Halloween for a lamp and ultimately giving up due to its tough, solid interior, not at all as easy to carve as a pumpkin: the vegetable of choice for Halloween ‘Jack-o-lanterns’ in the U.S.A. In Ireland turnips were hollowed out and small embers placed inside to ward off evil spirits. It is believed that this is the origin of the ubiquitous Halloween ‘Jack-o-lantern’ today. I’m guessing that when the Halloween tradition came to the U.S.A. someone must have hit on pumpkins as a much easier option- maybe after a similar experience to myself!

A European vegetable from pre-Christian times.

Turnip cultivation goes back to pre-Christian times. Its native range is uncertain but it has been suggested that central Europe is its likely place of origin. Theophrastus, the Greek Philosopher, knew of it in the 4th century BCE and many early varieties were given Greek place names. Later the Roman philosopher Pliny the elder listed 12 distinct varieties- categorizing them into the two groups- rapa and napus.

Origin of the name.

The turnip is related to cabbage: the scientific name Brassica is the Latin for cabbage and rapa means turnip. According to the illustrated encyclopedia “Vegetables, Herbs and Fruits” the common name ‘turnip’ comes from a combination of the Anglo-Saxon word ‘naep’ (from napus, in Brassica napus, the botanical name for rutabaga or swedes) and turn meaning round.

These days I enjoy eating a variety of turnips, including this white one illustrated above. I like to chop them up and bake them with a variety of other vegetables. I haven’t seen the purple turnip from my childhood here in the U.S.A.- where I now live- but one of these days I’ll find it I’m sure and then I’ll try it again, boiled and mashed with a little butter. However, I’m sticking with pumpkins for our Halloween lamps.

A Well-Travelled Exotic Insect- The Brown Marmorated Stink Bug.

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© Aislinn Adams Brown Marmorated Stink Bug and nymphs.

A ‘botanical’ illustration that walked into my blog.

All my blogs so far have been about my botanical illustrations. This week however, while continuing to write on the theme of fruit and vegetables, I write instead about an insect. This one appeared in our bathroom a few weeks ago. It left such an impression that I had to write about it. I have illustrated many insects for the “Digging In” gardening column of the Washington Post. Most of them have been garden pests but not all. This insect, above, is definitely a pest and has the potential to become a serious problem for fruit growers.

A stinkbug!

The mottled brown, six-legged creature, sporting dark antennae with white bands towards the tips, is only three quarters of an inch in length but hard to miss on our white linoleum floor. I immediately recognized it as a stink bug because of its shield-shaped body- they are also called shield bugs. My first thought was; how on earth did it get into our upstairs bathroom? Later I learned that this species takes shelter in houses over the winter.

We have a very permissive attitude towards insects in our house, with only a few of the usual exceptions. After all, we live in an old house full of nooks and crannies and very attractive to insects. Usually I, or my daughter, carefully release any tiny visitors to the outdoors.

The Brown Marmorated Stink Bug.

When I saw the stink bug I called my daughter so that she could have a good look. Then she gently lifted it onto a piece of tissue and released it outside onto our front porch. I didn’t think much of it at first. All insects are interesting and worth a second look but something about this one made me pause. It nagged at the back of my mind for a few days before I finally remembered that I illustrated a pest stink bug just like it for the “Digging In” gardening column a couple of years ago and then I remembered it’s name- the brown marmorated stink bug.

A potentially serious pest.

Of course the “Digging In” gardening column deals with gardening queries from the Washington D.C. area and not the Pacific North West. I didn’t connect the two stink bugs at first. I assumed this couldn’t be the same species all the way across the continent but rather a native species. I ‘googled’ the brown marmorated stink bug anyway. There are lots of photographs on line. I saw that our house visitor looked very similar. As I read on I felt rather guilty because I learned that we might have released an exotic, potentially serious pest into the neighborhood.

When a second one appeared in our bathroom a few days later I was ready with a jam jar and called the local extension service almost immediately. I brought the stink bug to their office and they confirmed that it was indeed a brown marmorated stink bug. However, they alleviated my guilt somewhat by letting me know that it was not the first found in the area.

A stink bug far from home.

The story of the brown marmorated stink bug is an interesting, cautionary tale. It was first found in the U.S.A. in Allentown, Pennsylvania in 1998. No one knows how it got there from its native range in China, Korea, Taiwan and Japan but it is presumed that it hitched a ride in some cargo. It is a pest in its own native range using fruit trees and soy, amongst many other species, as a host plant. The stink bug has sucking mouthparts and feeds by piercing fruit and stems. For this reason it could become a serious agricultural pest, especially here in Oregon: a huge fruit growing state.

Now  found in Oregon.

It was first found in Oregon in Portland in 2004 and later in Salem – where I live. As of today it has managed to find its way to over half the states in the U.S. According to an Oregon Dept. of Agriculture information sheet only two specimens of the stink bug have been found in the Salem area. If this information is up to date this means that the two stink bugs I found may be number three and four. If you think you have seen this stink bug in your house or yard bring it along to your local extension service and have them check it out. If, like me, you don’t like squashing bugs or spraying them with pesticides, an alternative way to kill them is to put them in a container in your freezer for a while.

Aislinn Adams

My Earliest Recollection of a “Botanical Illustration” Comes From an Unlikely Source

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Apple Blossom

My earliest recollection of a “Botanical illustration” comes from an unlikely source.

While browsing through my library of botanical illustrations, created for the Washington Post’s “Digging In” gardening column, I came across my illustration of an apple blossom (above). As I stopped to study it, unexpected memories surfaced. We all know the old saying- a picture paints a thousand words- but it can also paint a thousand memories. There is something about this particular botanical illustration: the way I drew the leaves, the composition and stippling treatment, that brings me back to my childhood. For a moment I experience the power of memory to transport me back to another time and place.

Another time and place.

That place is Tullamore, my hometown and county seat for Offaly in the Irish midlands. My father was a pharmacist, (or Chemist as they were called back then). He had his own pharmacy where loyal customers came regularly to get their prescriptions filled. As a small child I often visited him there and, if I was lucky, he gave me old-fashioned barley sugar, the only candies on sale in the shop at the time. I remember it as a calm, friendly place with kind shop assistants.

Christmas gift sets and nostalgic fragrances.

I particularly liked visiting the pharmacy at Christmas time. I was drawn to the gift sets, carefully arranged on green and red crepe paper, festooned with silver and gold tinsel. To my unsophisticated child’s eye they represented the height of luxury. I loved looking at those sets, their smooth bars of soap and cylindrical, cardboard containers of talcum powder, lying snugly on a bed of pastel shaded satin. I smelled their sweet fragrances – apple blossom, lily of the valley, wild rose: the lily of the valley the most exotic and intense perfume to my child-nose, the apple blossom sweet, pleasant and comforting. Fragrances full of nostalgia for me now, conjuring up the sights, sounds and smells of a warm spring day in an Irish childhood.

Earliest introduction to “botanical illustration”.

I was also drawn to those gift sets for their pretty, floral watercolor illustrations, quite probably my earliest introduction to “botanical illustration”. This memory teaches me to never underestimate the influence of any experience, no matter how small, on the open and impressionable mind of a child. I have heard it said that a person usually ends up doing in adulthood what they enjoyed doing most as a child. I look at my nine-year-old daughter, a ‘nature kid’ if ever there was one: barefoot, swinging wildly from a rope slung around the big leaf maple in our front yard, and I wonder what she’ll be doing when she’s my age.

Peony “Anne Rosse”- the human story behind the plant.

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Peony “Anne Rosse”, Paeonia “Anne Rosse”.

Peony “Anne Rosse” – behind every cultivated plant there lies a human story.

This week I promised to write more about Birr Castle, Co. Offaly, Ireland, and it’s place in plant collecting history. For this purpose I post my botanical watercolor illustration Peony “Anne Rosse” from the series I painted for an exhibit in Birr Castle’s Visitor Center. I choose this peony not only because it is a beautiful Irish ‘cultivar’ (cultivated variety) but also because it’s story is central to Birr Castle’s horticultural legacy.

Countess Anne Rosse.

Anne Rosse, for whom the peony is named, was Countess Anne Rosse, wife of Michael Parsons, the 6th Earl of Rosse. The Parsons family has lived at Birr Castle in the Irish midlands for almost 400 years and it was Michael’s father, the 5th Earl of Rosse, who laid the foundation for the extensive plant collection for which Birr demesne is now known. However, it was under the careful guidance of Michael and Anne that this foundation was built upon and developed.

A shared passion for plant collecting and gardening.

The couple were very well matched. Anne Rosse, neé Messels, came from a strong gardening background and as the daughter of Leonard Messels of Nymans, a well-known garden in the south of England, she had “a profound devotion to gardening” (Birr Castle website). Michael, the 6th Earl of Rosse, was an experienced plant collector and undoubtedly their choice of China as a honeymoon destination in 1935 was the result of this shared passion. While there the Earl arranged for the first major plant collecting expedition to be undertaken by a Chinese.

6th Earl and Countess Anne became very well known for their horticultural introductions.

Many other expeditions to the Americas and eastern Asia were sponsored and subscribed to by the Earl. As a result of all this exploration and subsequent plant propagation the 6th Earl and Countess Anne became very well known for their horticultural introductions, including Peony “Anne Rosse”. This tree peony, a cross between Paeonia lutea var. ludlowii and Paeonia delavayi, is the result of two different plant collecting trips to eastern Asia by the Rosses: one by the Earl to Tsang-Po Gorge, Tibet before his marriage and the other by the couple to Yu, China in 1937(Birr Castle website).

A giant facsimile of Countess Anne’s plant journal.

The botanical watercolors I painted for this exhibit are used in a giant facsimile of Countess Anne’s plant journal. There are 24 botanical illustrations in the series: two for every month of the year. As I painted this beautiful peony named for her it was not difficult to imagine Countess Anne walking around Birr demesne delighting in the latest bloom, busily sorting through new plant specimens just arrived from China or designing a new planting scheme.

The human story behind the plant.

Behind every cultivated plant there is a human story. Many of these stories start with a solitary plant collector, usually male, braving the elements in foreign lands to find new and rare plants. The story of Peony “Anne Rosse” is different. Here is the story of a husband and wife sharing a life long passion for plant collecting and gardening. I picture them working as a team, side by side, complementing each other’s skills and I can only imagine the delight and pleasure they must have experienced seeing the first Peony “Anne Rosse” bloom.

Aislinn Adams

Botanical Illustration, Adding Color This Week.

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Korean dogwood

© Aislinn Adams  Kousa dogwood, Cornus kousa

Watercolor illustration for a change!

All my blogs so far have featured black and white drawings for the “Digging in” gardening column of the Washington Post. This week I thought it was time to introduce some color by posting a watercolor illustration of Kousa dogwood, Cornus kousa. The Kousa dogwood, also known as the Japanese flowering dogwood, is native to eastern Asia and Japan but has been gracing the gardens of Europe and North America since the late 1800’s.

My neighbor’s Kousa dogwood

I can see my neighbor’s Kousa dogwood outside my side window as I write this blog. Living in an historic home in downtown Salem, Oregon, where the houses stand close together like old friends, I can enjoy looking at my neighbor’s Kousa dogwood without getting out of my chair. The tree is not yet in bloom, unlike its North American cousins, the flowering and Pacific dogwoods. The Kousa dogwood flowers about a month later.

The dogwood flower- not a flower?

I have illustrated the Kousa dogwood three times for the “Digging In” gardening column: once in flower, and twice in fruit. The strawberry-like fruit is very attractive in the fall but the flowers in early summer really steal the show. What we so often admire as the dogwood “flower” is in fact not the flower but the flower bracts. The true flowers are tiny and dark green in the center. When the Kousa dogwood is in flower it has a flamboyant air about it, probably because its “flowers” often point upwards in horizontal rows. It’s as if the tree is holding out its arms to embrace passersby and proclaim how good it is to be alive.

Birr Castle, Ireland.

The watercolor illustration I’ve posted above is from a set of botanical illustrations I painted for an exhibit at Birr Castle’s Visitor Center, County Offaly, Ireland. The story of Birr Castle is a fascinating chapter in the history of plant collecting and I will tell you more about it next week.

Botanical Illustration and the Joys of Weeding!

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Bermuda grass, Cynodon dactylon

Gardening with native plants and the joys of weeding!

I have drawn my fair share of weeds over the past decade for the Washington Post’s “Digging In” gardening column. Some of the weeds I’ve drawn are true to their name without much to recommend them while others can be quite beautiful while still very “weedy”.  I have created botanical illustrations of Bermuda grass (Cynodon dactylon) twice for the “Digging In” gardening column and although I hate to speak ill of any plant, even a weed, I have to admit I’m not a great fan of this grass. It is a real nuisance plant for gardeners across the United States of America, including here in Oregon where I live. Fortunately for me I garden with native plants, mostly in the shade, so I don’t have much trouble with Bermuda grass as it prefers a sunnier spot.

A damned good weeder!

I met a gardener once who was a great native plant enthusiast. I was an intern at Mt Cuba Center in Delaware at the time, very new to the United States and just learning my way. We were both on a native plant trip to the Smokey Mountains. I innocently asked her what she did for a living and, with a twinkle in her eye she quietly replied, “I’m a damned good weeder”. Later I understood what she meant as I learned that she was independently wealthy and not in need of a “living” at all. Gardening with native plants was her passion, her avocation, and as any gardener knows, if you love gardening you do a lot of weeding.

I love weeding.

I like to think of myself as a “damned good weeder” though not independently wealthy. I love weeding. Not the back-breaking Himalayan blackberry pulling variety, though that can have it’s moments, but rather the careful, knowledge-building kind where you learn to distinguish the seedling of a troublesome weed from a welcome native plant. If you garden with native plants you really need to be able to tell the seedlings apart: to separate the team players from the troublemakers so to speak.

Weeding monotonous? Never!

Some people find weeding very boring. I know some weeding can be horribly monotonous, especially the kind where all you do is pull up everything green except your rows of ornamental annuals or showy perennials. This is not the kind of weeding I mean. I’m referring to the kind where you are constantly observing and frequently delighted by some new native seedling found half hidden under the foliage of the mother plant.

I love this kind of weeding also because it allows me the time to enjoy the dank, rotting leaf smell of the soil and the more subtle perfume of less showy native wildflowers, not to mention the “green” scent of lightly crushed leaves, one of my favorite smells.

If you really want to know a plant.

In my last blog I wrote that if you want to remember a plant draw it. Well, if you really want to  know a plant grow it. I have found no better way to get to know the American native plants of my new homeland than by getting down on my knees, up close and personal, weeding.

Aislinn Adams.

If You Want to Remember a Plant.

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Star magnolia, Magnolia stellata

If you really want to remember a plant, draw it!

I always say that if you really want to remember a plant, draw it. There’s nothing more effective to really make you look deeply at a plant than spending hours drawing it. I don’t know of anything better to imprint it on your brain.

Drawing makes you take the time to look.

When Georgia O’Keeffe was asked why she painted flowers she replied, “Nobody sees a flower really; it is so small. We haven’t time, and to see takes time – like to have a friend takes time.” I don’t know how much time people spend looking at flowers these days but I do know that if you draw a flower you really have to take the time to look at it.

Drawing has improved my memory.

I spent 10 years drawing botanical illustrations for the weekly “Digging In” gardening column of the Washington Post. As a result of that work I now have a collection of 500+ botanical illustrations. When someone asks me if I have illustrated some plant, like the star magnolia (Magnolia stellata) above for example, I can always remember if I have or not. I may not remember in which month or year I did it, though I usually have a fairly good idea, but I can definitely remember.  This is due to the hours and hours I spend looking at a plant while illustrating it. Each pen and ink drawing I produced for the “Digging In” gardening column took anywhere from 10 to 20 hours to create, depending on its complexity.  That is a long time to spend looking at a plant.

You don’t have to be an artist to draw.

I don’t believe that you have to be a great artist or illustrator to enjoy drawing plants or to benefit from the hours you spend with them in this way. If you are a plant enthusiast who loves to garden or an amateur botanist who loves to study native plants and you want to remember what you see here’s my advice; the next time you are out in your yard or walking in the woods, bring along a sketchpad and pencil, find a plant that interests you, and start drawing. Don’t judge your results harshly but rather check later how well you can remember the plant you drew.

Aislinn Adams

A Botanical illustration and Fond Childhood Memories.

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Remembering Rhubarb.

As I prepared my rhubarb illustration (Rheum rhabarbarum) for the “Digging In” gardening column I thought back to my childhood home and the rhubarb patch in our garden. We had a lovely big garden -by garden I also mean “yard” , as it is known here in the U.S. Half was well tended and half semi-wild. The rhubarb patch was in a sunny spot near a rather neglected corner: a transition area between tended and wild, where an old, fallen-down green house was “home” to a long-suffering apricot tree. The tree is long dead but at that time it struggled on with little protection from the elements. The glass panes and many of the window frames had long ago fallen to the ground.

I was told to stay out of this part of the garden because of the broken glass barely hidden in the weeds. I obviously forgot the warning as I can remember falling and cutting my knee badly on a shard of glass. I was four years of age. Our family doctor came and, tweezers in hand, gently removed grit lodged deep in the cut.  I don’t remember crying or feeling pain but to this day I have a hard lump the size and shape of a small limpid shell on my knee. This incident, rather than putting me off, made that part of the garden- and rhubarb- more memorable and interesting.

Rhubarb Tarts.

I looked forward to rhubarb season each year. My mother would send me, or one of my siblings, out to pick enough stems for a couple of tarts. With six children to feed she baked every day and always several tarts at a time. I loved those rhubarb tarts. Every now and again we were given a precious rhubarb stem to chew raw. The favorite eating method was dipping it into a cup of sugar to sweeten the tartness.

Rhubarb- Fruit or Vegetable?

At first I thought of rhubarb as a curious, old-fashioned fruit. This no doubt was due to its popularity in my home as a tart filling and the copious amounts of sugar added to sweeten it. Later I learned that rhubarb is not a fruit but a vegetable.

An Interesting History.

Rhubarb has a long and interesting history. Its original use was as a medicine. As far back as 2,700 B.C.E  the Chinese used its roots as a powerful purgative. Marco Polo first brought the dried root to Europe where, by the 16th century, it was considered a valuable plant because of its use against venereal diseases. It wasn’t until 1778 that the French started eating the rhubarb stem in pies and tarts.

Rhubarb Time Again.

It is almost that time of year again and I’m wishing I had remembered to get a division of rhubarb from my friend. She has offered it to me many times. Rhubarb is best transplanted between late fall and early spring. The season is several weeks early this year in the Willamette valley so I will wait until the fall to get the division promised by my friend. In the meantime I’ll shall resort to begging or buying to satisfy my appetite for this curious, old “fruit”.

Aislinn Adams

This Week’s Botanical Illustration and The Irish Connection

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Hubei lily

Hubei lily, Lilium henryi
© Aislinn Adams

A botanical illustration with an Irish connection

The botanical illustrations I’ve created for the Washington Post’s “Digging In” column usually have absolutely no connection to Ireland. Gardening in the Washington D.C. area can be a very different experience to gardening in Ireland. The D.C. weather is full of extremes with the temperature sometimes rising or falling as much as 20 degrees Fahrenheit in one day. Ireland’s weather is much milder, knowing no such extremes. Lots of exotic, bright, colorful shrubs and vines that thrive in the hot, moist conditions of a D.C. summer wouldn’t survive a good Irish summer, never mind a bad one that can be “summer” in name only.

Lilium henryi – Henry’s lily

Then one week Adrian Higgins, the gardening editor at the Washington Post, asked me to create a botanical illustration of Lilium henryi. I sat up straight and smiled – at last a plant with an Irish connection. Lilium henryi or Henry’s lily, a tall, orange, turkscap lily, is not native to Ireland but it most definitely has a strong connection to there. Augustine Henry, one of Ireland’s most famous plant collectors from the golden age of plant collecting in the late 1800’s, first described this beautiful plant.

Augustine Henry

Augustine Henry (1857-1930) grew up in Co. Tyrone, Ireland. He trained as a medical doctor but is best known for his plant collecting. After qualifying as a doctor he went to China to work for the Imperial Chinese Custom Service and in 1882 they sent him to the remote posting of Yichang in Hubei province to investigate plants used in Chinese medicine. (One of Lilium henryi’s common names is Hubei lily.) During his time in China he sent back thousands of plant specimens to Kew Gardens, England, and to Ireland. By 1896 25 new genera and 500 new species had been described from his specimens.

I felt proud that week creating a botanical illustration for a plant first described by one of Ireland’s great plant collectors and bearing his name in its species epithet.

To see my greeting card of Lilium henryi click here.

Aislinn Adams