Unearthing Precambrian Protistan Taxonomy with BHL

Amoebozoans are believed to have existed for hundreds of millions of years. These ancient protists are characterized by the presence of pseudopodia, cytoplasm-filled projections that are used for locomotion and feeding.

Today, over 2,000 species of Amoebozoa are recognized. The phylum itself was first scientifically described by Max Lühe, a professor at the University of Königsberg (Germany), in 1913.

Dr. Leigh Anne Riedman, a NASA Astrobiology Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University (Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences), specializes in Precambrian paleontology. Her research involves fossils similar to the testate amoebae described and illustrated by Lühe in 1913. However, Riedman quickly discovered that tracking down the reference for Lühe’s paper to support her studies was more challenging than anticipated.

“Many authors working on Amoebozoa would mention Lühe’s name, but I never found a single full reference for this paper,” recalls Riedman.

Testate amoebae described and illustrated by Max Lühe. Handbuch der Morphologie der wirbellosen Tiere. Bd. 1 (1913). Digitized by the American Museum of Natural History. http://s.si.edu/2tiM3BF.

Fortunately, with help of the Biodiversity Heritage Library, Riedman was able to unearth this crucial publication.

“Armed with only an author name and year, Lühe, 1913, and the keyword ‘amoeboa,’ I found it!” exclaims Riedman. “BHL was the only place I was able to track down this reference.”

Riedman cites this reference in her upcoming paper, “Vase-Shaped Microfossil Biostratigraphy with New Data from Tasmania, Svalbard, Greenland, Sweden and the Yukon”, which will be published in Precambrian Research later this year.

Dr. Riedman on a sampling trip to King Island, Tasmania in 2010. She and her colleagues collected materials for study of acritarchs from the Sturtian glaciation and the interglacial interval of the Neoproterozoic Snowball Earth as well as older fossils called vase-shaped microfossils that are thought to be fossil testate amoebae.

Riedman has been studying Precambrian paleontology for nearly two decades. Her work deals with a group of fossils called the acritarchs, organic microfossils that first appeared approximately 1,400 to 3,200 million years ago. Since first discovering BHL while searching for early taxonomic works on this group, the Library has become a vital part of Riedman’s research process.

“BHL is fantastic!” lauds Riedman. “It has made a huge difference in my work- sometimes providing access to texts I wouldn’t otherwise be able to get, sometimes by giving me the gift of my own time, as I don’t have to spend hours or days tracking down a resource, waiting on interlibrary loan, and then either scanning it for text recognition and translation or typing it into a translator piece-meal.”

Vase-shaped microfossils from Tasmania. Likely about 760 million years old.

Using BHL several times per month, Riedman downloads PDFs of articles or books for use in fossil identification and synonymy lists. The ability to view the whole journal volume within BHL not only gives Riedman context for the article she is seeking, but also helps her find additional relevant articles in the process, thereby increasing the quality and efficiency of her research.

“There have been several times that I’ve used BHL to track down references listed in taxonomic synonymy sections that weren’t available anywhere else,” shares Riedman. “I am paranoid about citing a reference I’ve never read, so without getting access to those texts through BHL, I might have had to cut sections from research papers or sell my soul and cite a paper sight unseen *gasp*!”

Dr. Riedman sampling drillcore in Alice Springs, Australia. These shale samples were placed into hydrofluoric acid to dissolve the rock- this process leaves the organic-walled fossils intact. Those are then studied by transmitted light microscope and scanning electron microscope.

In Riedman’s opinion, BHL is important not only for supporting modern scientific research, but also for ensuring that the work of past scientists is not forgotten.

“Many of the articles I’ve been able to access through BHL were written by pioneers in this field, like Tadas Jankauskas and Boris Timofeev, and their work deserves recognition (even if it is in a language other than English!),” emphasizes Riedman. “Our field is too young to be forgetting its past already. I am so glad to be able to gain access to more and more of these publications online.”

Dr. Riedman sampling drillcore in Darwin, Australia.

Through its worldwide consortium of natural history and botanical libraries, the Biodiversity Heritage Library is working to ensure that the published record of biodiversity knowledge is freely available to researchers across the globe. By making this content globally accessible to anyone with an Internet connection, BHL is helping to advance scientific research and inspire discovery of the natural world.

You can help support global research through a tax-deductible donation to BHL. With your help, we can continue to democratize access to information about biodiversity and empower scientific research on a global scale.

By Grace Costantino 
Outreach and Communication Manager 
Biodiversity Heritage Library

Using the materials at hand: Richard Archbold and the 2nd Archbold Expedition to New Guinea

By Kendra Meyer 
Field Book Project Archivist, American Museum of Natural History

The American Museum of Natural History selected two unique sets of material to digitize for the CLIR BHL Field Notes Project: field books from the Whitney South Sea Expedition and the Archbold Expeditions. These were two long-running undertakings to systematically explore and collect the flora and fauna of Oceania. Both contributed invaluable specimens to the scientific research and exhibition collections at AMNH. We recently completed digitization of the Whitney South Sea Expedition field notes and are thrilled to have commenced work on the Archbold material. Arguably, the most rewarding aspect of participating in this project is raising awareness of some rather remarkable individuals and expeditions. One example is the 2nd Archbold Expedition to New Guinea. We recently digitized leader Richard Archbold’s journal from that journey, which helps shine a light on this particularly fascinating story.

Archbold Expeditions is a corporation originally founded and led by Richard Archbold. It funded a research collection and staff at the AMNH Department of Mammalogy and sponsored a series of scientific collecting journeys to New Guinea and northern Australia. Heir to a substantial fortune, Archbold was a collector, explorer, ecologist, photographer, mountaineer, and pilot. As a youth he developed a love of nature and technology which carried over into all his future endeavors. He was a Research Associate at AMNH since his participation as photographer and mammalogist in the Mission zoologique franco-anglo-américaine à Madagascar, an experience which would directly inspire him to continue exploration work. He led the first three of the Archbold New Guinea Expeditions himself, and in 1940 founded the Archbold Biological Station in Florida. This research station and Archbold Expeditions were associated with AMNH until the 1980s. The Archbold Biological Station is still vitally active today.

Archbold excelled at organization and planning, recognizing needs and filling them. He regularly made use of and adapted the most current technology and also sought after the best scientists and personnel for his expeditions.

Some of the 2nd Archbold Expedition participants, including scientific party Austin Rand, G. H. H. Tate and Leonard Brass. All three participated in multiple Archbold Expeditions.
“WH2; Papua, Oroville Camp; Juhlstedt, Rand, Tate, Archbold, Burke, Healy, Brass.” Archbold Expeditions Collection, Department of Mammalogy, AMNH.

This ability to recognize needs and adapt is never more evident than in the 2nd Archbold Expedition, which took place between 1936 and 1937. There were seven ‘numbered’ Archbold Expeditions to New Guinea, reaching all areas of the region. The focus for this journey was the largely uncharted area of the Western Province of Papua New Guinea from Daru up the Fly River. After the success of the first expedition to New Guinea between 1933 and 1934, Richard Archbold hoped to continue the systematic exploration of Papua New Guinea, but he recognized that one of the main challenges to exploration in this region was in the effective provision and transportation of supplies overland in this mountainous terrain. Describing it as “the biggest bugbear of former travel in New Guinea,” (1) the lack of local food availability resulted in a need for a continuously moving food relay transport system manned with native assistants.

Demonstrating the above-mentioned practical planning and technological skills, Archbold and crew proposed and designed an innovative system of communication, transportation and delivery using aircraft, radio, and parachutes to utilize in the next trek. In addition to Archbold, the scientific party included ornithologist and assistant leader Austin Rand, botanist Leonard Brass, and mammalogist G. H. H. Tate.

Archbold is walking toward the front of the craft. Note the triangular Archbold Expeditions insignia on the plane.
“90-43; Papua, W.D., Daru: Kono on ramp after return from Lake Marguerita.” Archbold Expeditions Collection, Department of Mammalogy, AMNH.

Archbold purchased a Fairchild Amphibian seaplane which he named the Kono, to be used to deliver supplies to the remote areas by parachute. The combination of air transport, along with a system of radio communications proved to be highly successful in practice. The use of the radios allowed the various divisions of the expedition (advance land party, collecting group and plane) to keep in contact and coordinate supply drops and pickups from remote areas, communication on which they were dependent.

Besides collecting mammals, Tate acted as a radio operator.
“210-18; Papua, Western Division, Fly River, 528 mi. camp: Willis, Rogers, Tate & Healy” Archbold Expeditions Collection, Department of Mammalogy, AMNH. 

Besides transportation, the aircraft was also used for a series of reconnaissance flights to determine mountain camp sites and possible landing areas. In Archbold’s journal we see multiple lists of observations from these flights. They note the time, the participant making the observation, and even where they were seated, an evident effort to fully survey the viewed areas.

Reconnaissance flight observations.
Richard Archbold’s journal : Second Archbold Expedition to New Guinea, p. [19]; http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/53611788 

Initial plans called for the group to travel up to high elevations in the mountains but in July of 1936, only a few months into their endeavor, the Kono was tragically capsized in a sudden storm. Although no one was harmed, the devastation of this loss is clearly conveyed in a series of radio messages: “Our plane sunk.” In Tate’s expedition journal, which will soon be digitized for this project, he relates receiving the message, stating “What a calamity for Archbold!”(2)

Messages to Tate and Rand announcing the wreck of the Kono.
Richard Archbold’s journal : Second Archbold Expedition to New Guinea, p. [101]; http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/53611844 

Besides the obvious financial setback of this loss, the team was forced to quickly adapt their plans, arranging for alternate means to transport the collections. The scientific staff and the carriers built a flotilla of rafts to move the specimens and supplies down the Fly River. According to Rand, "Tate had his rats on his rafts, Brass his plants on his, and I had my birds on mine.” (3) Not to be deterred, they simply moved forward and continued collecting in the lowlands, a resilience I find enviable. This is not to say that the irony of the situation was lost on the participants. In an article for Natural History magazine, Rand and Archbold noted that during the expedition both the most current and the most primitive methods of transportation were used: planes, ships, homemade rafts, and foot. (4)

After having to abandon plans to continue to higher altitudes, the team crafted a series of rafts to float material down the Fly River.
“258-20; Papua, W.D., Fly R., No. 2 base: Rafts being loaded—close up. Photo by Brass” Archbold Expeditions Collection, Department of Mammalogy, AMNH. 

It is important to note the very practical advantage and benefit of their radio system at this juncture. It not only allowed easy communication, remote organization and project direction across the region, but also contact with New York. A copy of a radiogram received at AMNH on July 16, 1936 from Archbold at Daru reassures the safety of all parties. “Absolutely no cause for alarm stop Rogers dropped more food advance party in Guinea Airways plane stop in constant radio communication advance party stop they advise absolutely no danger.” (5)

Archbold immediately began planning for the next expedition, even looking to purchase a replacement plane. A copy of a radio message from his mother shows her practical opposition to such an expense so soon. Archbold remained single-minded, however. “Though we had failed to reach the mountains our large collections from the Upper Fly were extremely valuable and our new methods of transport had proved so feasible that we plan to use the same system in collecting at the highest altitudes in the little known Snow Mountains of Dutch New Guinea early next year.” (6) That expedition also used the combination of seaplane delivery and radio with great success, incidentally also managing to set world aeronautic records! Amusingly, Archbold named this next plane the ‘Guba,’ which is the local dialectic term for the type of storm that downed the Kono.

A page from Archbold's journal. Note the message from his mother.
Richard Archbold’s journal : Second Archbold Expedition to New Guinea, p. [113]; 

For context, it is interesting to place these expeditions in the overarching history of biodiversity exploration and collection in the region. In 2015, AMNH scientists participated in a collaborative Explore21 expedition to Papua New Guinea. Department of Ornithology Collections Manager Paul Sweet noted their place in the legacy of exploration in New Guinea, notably with the use of now modern technology: “Papua New Guinea is well known as a biodiversity hotspot, but it’s still not fully explored. The Museum has a long history of making expeditions to the island of New Guinea [the eastern half is part of the nation of Papua New Guinea; the western half is governed by Indonesia], so we were following in the tradition of naturalist explorers like Ernst Mayr, Richard Archbold, and E. Thomas Gilliard. And that’s really the thrust of these Explore21 expeditions. It’s a great way to continue the tradition of scientific collecting expeditions alongside cutting edge 21-century methods like genomics.” (7)

Hmm, cutting-edge technology and expeditions…sound familiar?

References:

(1) Archbold, Richard and Rand, A.L., “With plane and radio in stone age New Guinea,” Natural History 40, no. 3 (1937): 568.
(2) Tate, G. H. H., Field journal : Archbold 1936 New Guinea Exp. February 27, 1936 to July 8, 1937. AMNH Department of Mammalogy Archive.
(3) Morse, Roger A., Richard Archbold and the Archbold Biological Station. (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2000), 18.
(4) Archbold, Richard and Rand, A.L., “With plane and radio in stone age New Guinea,” Natural History 40, no. 3 (1937)
(5) Radiogram transcript, 1936, Archbold Expeditions Collection, AMNH Department of Mammalogy Archive.
(6) Archbold and Rand, 576.
(7) AMNH, “SciCafe Goes to Papua New Guinea [blog post], (2/27/15), accessed at http://www.amnh.org/explore/news-blogs/q-as/scicafe-goes-to-papua-new-guinea


The BHL Field Notes Project is funded by the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR).

BHL Welcomes Three New Affiliates

BHL is pleased to welcome three long-time Partners as the consortium’s newest Affiliates: BHL Egypt, BHL China, and BHL SciELO.

The BHL consortium now consists of 18 Members and 18 Affiliates. Members and Affiliates contribute content, provide technical services, and participate in BHL committees, task forces, and working groups. Additionally, Members, who contribute 10,000 USD in annual dues, have governance privileges and vote on strategic directives.

BHL Egypt 

BHL Egypt, led by the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (BA), joined the Biodiversity Heritage Library in 2009. A major library and cultural center located in Alexandria, Egypt, Bibliotecha Alexandrina has long brought considerable technical expertise to the BHL consortium. The BA provides access to a subset of the BHL collection through its own Digital Assets Repository, which features an Arabic-aware (right to left) book reader. As an Affiliate, BHL Egypt will continue to provide technical support and services to facilitate BHL’s ongoing development.

BHL China 

BHL China, founded by the Institute of Botany at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, is the Biodiversity Heritage Library’s first Affiliate in China. Established in 1928, the Institute of Botany is one of the oldest comprehensive research institutions in China. Host to the largest herbarium in Asia, two botanical gardens, and several laboratories, the Institute is a national leader in the development of the country’s plant science research. Since first joining BHL as a partner in 2010, the Institute of Botany has contributed over 325,000 pages to BHL through the BHL China program.

BHL SciELO 

The BHL SciELO Network is the Biodiversity Heritage Library’s first Affiliate in South America. BHL SciELO is implemented by the Scientific Electronic Library (SciELO) Program, which encompass a network of national collections of open access journals in 15 countries. SciELO Brazil coordinates the BHL SciELO Network involving the main biodiversity libraries of Brazil with political and financial support from the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) and the Secretary of Biodiversity of the Ministry of Environment. SciELO joined BHL as a partner in 2010, and since then it has contributed over 107,000 pages to BHL’s collection.

The Rhododendrons of Sikkim-Himalaya

By Virginia Mills 
Project Officer, the Joseph Hooker Correspondence Project
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew 

Joseph Hooker, born 200 years ago this year, may have been the greatest botanist of the nineteenth century, professionalizing practice of the discipline and establishing the system of botanical classification used almost universally until the advent of genetics-based systems. He was certainly one of the most pivotal Directors in the history of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, defending its role as a scientific institution rather than a pleasure park and expanding its infrastructure and collections. However, to horticulturalists, he is perhaps best known for his introduction of new species of Rhododendron to Europe in the mid 19th century.

Rhododendron argenteum one of Hooker's new species published in The Rhododendrons of Sikkim-Himalaya. http://s.si.edu/2tkRKAP. Drawing by Joseph Dalton Hooker. Lithographed by Walter Hood Fitch. Digitized by the Missouri Botanical Garden.  

It was whilst on a plant collecting expedition in India and the Himalayas (1847-1851) that Hooker became the first European to be granted permission to explore what was then the autonomous kingdom of Sikkim, now a northern state of India, which had previously been closed to foreign explorers. In this unspoilt mountain kingdom, he gathered over 25 species of Rhododendron that would prove to be unknown to science and to European horticulturalists.

Spectacular illustrations of these Rhododendrons were published in the lavish book The Rhododendrons of Sikkim-Himalaya. At Kew, we love that these are available to view online at the Biodiversity Heritage Library for ease of access along with many other landmark publications by Hooker. You can also browse the superb illustrations on Flickr.

Illustrations from Hooker's Rhododendrons of Sikkim-Himalaya made available through Flickr by our partners at BHL.

Hooker braved the monsoon rains to ensure that he could collect seeds of these new botanical beauties. His letters from the expedition, recently digitized by the archives of Kew Gardens, describe the discomforts of the endeavor: frozen fingers, the shin tearing Rhododendron scrub, prolific leeches, the danger from overflowing rivers, snow blindness, rock falls and the added suffering of altitude sickness to name a few.

"Worst of all is the depressing effect of being often baffled: you go at up a gully, take a probable branch, are turned at the top,: down you go, every step lost & try another, & so on, 4, 5, & 6 times perhaps; till, utterly fagged, you slope at night-fall down to camp, wet bruised & dissatisfied." (Source)

Hooker was sometimes demoralized but not deterred and was determined to collect as much as he could:

"These explorations are very hard work, but I get such lots of plants that they are always abundantly profitable". (Source)

More tales of Hooker's collecting trials in his own words are available online through Kew's Joseph Hooker correspondence project and in his published Journal available on BHL. Some of my personal favorites include imprisonment by the Rajah and a close shave with an avalanche in which his collecting companion, a dog named Kinchin, lost his whiskers.

Victorian photograph of the Rhodoedndron Dell at The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Reproduced by the Permission of the Trustees of The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

The Kew Gardens Annual Report of 1850 records the receipt of '21 baskets of Indian orchids and new species of Rhododendron' from Hooker. The Rhododendrons were planted in Kew's hollow walk, to become known as the Rhododendron dell, and shared with nurseries and gardeners across Europe, starting a craze for the plants and a legacy of their profusion across the gardens of stately homes in particular.

Field sketch of Rhododendron falconeri by Joseph Hooker, c.1850. Reproduced by the Permission of the Trustees of The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

The additional annotated field sketches, dried plants and descriptions that Hooker sent home allowed the great botanical artist Walter Hood Fitch and Joseph Hooker's father, botanist William Jackson Hooker, to publish The Rhododendrons of Sikkim Himalaya before Joseph had even returned home. To mark the bicentenary of Hooker's birth this year, Kew has reproduced a facsimile edition of the publication from the first edition held in its library collection.

The Botanical Art of Redouté

Redouté, Pierre Joseph. Les liliacees. (1802-1815). v. 2. http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/299211. Digitized by Missouri Botanical Garden.

The most celebrated flower painter of quite possibly the entire history of botanical art is Pierre-Joseph Redouté. Nicknamed "the Raphael of flowers," Redouté published over 2,100 plates depicting over 1,800 species - many of which had never before been illustrated for publication - throughout his career (University Libraries 2013). Many of Redouté's publications are available in the Biodiversity Heritage Library, and a selection of these works is examined in this article.

Born in 1759 at St. Hubert in the present-day Belgian province of Luxembourg, Redouté and his two brothers - who also became artists - were descended from a family of Belgian painters. After receiving training in his father's studio, Redouté set out at just thirteen years of age to earn a living as an artist. Eventually, in 1782 at the age of twenty-three, Pierre-Joseph joined his elder brother, Antoine-Ferdinand, designing stage scenery for the Théâtre-Italien in the rue de Louvois (Blunt 1967).

Redouté, Pierre Joseph. Les liliacees. (1802-1815). v.  6. http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/300521. Digitized by Missouri Botanical Garden.

During this period, Pierre-Joseph's leisure time was spent painting flowers, and it was this passion that eventually led him to the Jardin du Roi, which today is known as Jardin des Plantes and is part of the Muséum national d’histoire naturelle. It was here that Redouté met and befriended Dutch painter Gerard van Spaendonck, Professeur de peinture de fleurs at the Jardin. van Spaendonck had a profound influence on Redouté, instructing him on engraving and water coloring techniques. In fact, Wilfrid Blunt, author of The Art of Botanical Illustration, asserts that Redouté owes much of his success to the technical discoveries that he learned from van Spaendonck (Blunt 1967).

Redouté's technique, modeled upon that of van Spaendonck, involved "pure water colour, gradated with infinite subtlety and very occasionally touched with body-colour to suggest sheen" (Blunt 1967, 179). Redouté eventually perfected the reproduction of his paintings for publication using stipple engraving, which used dots, rather than lines, to engrave plates, with varying dot density being used to convey tone and shading (Blunt 1967).

L'Héritier de Brutelle, Charles Louis. Stirpes novae :aut minus cognitae, quas descriptionibus et iconibus. (1784-85). Art by Pierre-Joseph Redouté. http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/12516529. Digitized by Missouri Botanical Garden.

During his time creating botanical drawings for the Jardin du Roi, Redouté came to the attention of wealthy botanist Charles Louis L’Héritier de Brutelle, who instructed him on plant anatomy and the characteristics necessary for detailed botanical study. As a result of this relationship, L’Héritier enlisted Redouté to illustrate more than fifty plates for his Stirpes novae (1784–1785), which has been digitized in BHL by the Missouri Botanical Garden (Blunt 1967). With this work, L’Héritier intended to describe, illustrate, and classify according to the Linnaean system plants new or largely unknown to science at the time. This included specimens collected during the Dombey-Ruiz-Pavón expedition to Chile and Peru and plants found at Kew Gardens, Jardin du Roi, and other European gardens (Dumbarton Oaks 2016). Several years later, Redouté also produced plates for L’Héritier's Sertum Anglicum (1788), also digitized by the Missouri Botanical Garden, which included studies of rare plants growing at Kew Gardens (Blunt 1967). James Sowerby, another renowned English illustrator, also produced illustrations for this work (Mathew 1981).

L'Héritier de Brutelle, Charles Louis. Sertum Anglicum, seu, Plantae rariores quae in hortis juxta Londinum. (1788). Art by Pierre-Joseph Redouté. http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/11832434. Digitized by Missouri Botanical Garden.

In the late 1780s, likely at the recommendation of L’Héritier, Redouté was appointed Draughtsman to the Cabinet of Marie-Antoinette. During this time, L’Héritier proposed the production of Plantarum historia succulentarum (Histoire des plantes grasses), a work on cacti and succulent plants that would be illustrated by Redouté. While the French Revolution undermined L’Héritier's ability to sponsor the project, an enterprising publisher, Garnéry, was enlisted to undertake the publication (Mathew 1981) and Swiss botanist Augustin Pyramus de Candolle was selected as the contributor of the descriptive text. The first section of Plantarum historia succulentarum was published in 1799, and publication continued intermittently until 1837 (Missouri Botanical Garden 2003). This was the first botanical publication for which Redouté was the sole artist and the first to utilize his color-printing method of stipple-engraved plates (Mathew 1981). It has been digitized by Missouri Botanical Garden.

Candolle, Augustin Pyramus de. Plantarum historia succulentarum =Histoire des plantes grasses. (1799-1837). v. 2. Art by Pierre-Joseph Redouté. http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/281073. Digitized by Missouri Botanical Garden.

Following the French Revolution, Redouté continued painting for the Jardin du Roi, and the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte resulted in increased fame for Redouté as Joséphine Bonaparte's court artist (Dumbarton Oaks 2016). Bonaparte married Joséphine de Beauharnais in 1796, and a few years later, Joséphine purchased Chateau de Malmaison near the western bank of the Seine. Joséphine set out to create magnificent gardens filled with rare and exotic plants from the Old and New Worlds, and in this venture she committed massive sums towards the procurement and cultivation of "choice flowers" and the production of extravagant publications about her gardens, for which Redouté contributed some of the most celebrated art in the history of botanical illustration (Blunt 1967).

Ventenat, É. P. Jardin de la Malmaison. (1803-1804). Art by Pierre-Joseph Redouté. v. 1. http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/43441869. Digitized by Smithsonian Libraries.

The first of these publications was Jardin de la Malmaison, for which Redouté produced several hundred plant portraits exemplifying scientific precision and artistic mastery. These portraits, painted on parchment, were reproduced for publication using copperplate stipple engraving. Joséphine hired botanist Étienne Pierre Ventenat to identify and describe the plants at Malmaison. The resulting work was published in twenty installments of about 150 copies between 1803-1804 (Lack 2001). It has been digitized in BHL by Smithsonian Libraries.

Ventenat, É. P. Jardin de la Malmaison. (1803-1804). Art by Pierre-Joseph Redouté. v. 2. http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/43518674. Digitized by Smithsonian Libraries.

A description of the plants at Malmaison was continued in Description des plantes rares cultivees a Malmaison et a Navarre. Following his divorce from Joséphine, Napoleon presented her with the country estate of Navarre near Évreux in Normandy. Here, Joséphine again set out to create a magnificent garden of rare plants. With Étienne Pierre Ventenat deceased, she engaged botanist Aime Bonpland to continue the description of her plants. Redouté and Pancrace Bessa, also a student of van Spaendonck's, produced watercolor paintings to illustrate Description des plantes rares cultivees a Malmaison et a Navarre, which was published in a print run of 325 copies between 1812-1817 (Lack 2001). It has been digitized by Missouri Botanical Garden.

Bonpland, Aimé. Description des plantes rares cultivees a Malmaison et a Navarre. (1812-1817). Art by Pierre-Joseph Redouté. http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/275897. Digitized by Missouri Botanical Garden.

During this period, the renowned Les liliacees was also published. This eight-volume work (digitized by Missouri Botanical Garden), published between 1802-1815, presents a collection of over 450 watercolors by Redouté. Botanical descriptions for the work were provided by Augustin Pyramus de Candolle (volumes 1-4), François de Laroche (volumes 5-7), and Alire Raffeneau-Delile (volume 8). The watercolors were reproduced using stipple plate engraving finished by hand. While the title may be Les liliacees, the work actually covers many other petaloid monocotyledons found in French gardens at this time, including Iridaceae, Commelinaceae, and Amaryllidaceae (Mathew 1981). Redouté pays homage to Joséphine, a major patron of the work, by renaming an amaryllis Amaryllis Josephinae, which is depicted in the only folding plate in the publication (Christie's 1997).

Amaryllis Josephinae. Redouté, Pierre Joseph. Les liliacees. (1802-1815). v. 7. http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/300907. Digitized by Missouri Botanical Garden.

Publication of Redouté's arguably most-popular work, Les roses, began in 1817. This work, published in three volumes between 1817-1824, describes and depicts roses found in the Malmaison gardens, the collections of botanist Claude Antoine Thory (who provided the text for this work), and other gardens around Paris. It not only describes many flowers that are the forerunners of today's roses, but it also includes species and cultivars that are no longer in existence (Christie's 2008). This work was reprinted twice over the course of a few short years, and the third edition, published between 1828-1835, has been digitized by Biblioteca Digital del Real Jardin Botanico de Madrid and can be accessed through BHL.

Redouté, Pierre Joseph. Les Roses. 3rd Ed. v. 2 (1835). http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/75996. Digitized by Biblioteca Digital del Real Jardin Botanico de Madrid.

While Redouté continued to enjoy fame throughout his career, producing not only sought-after paintings but also tutoring many distinguished pupils, his extravagant spending habits led him to financial embarrassment, requiring him to sell furniture, silver, and paintings in an attempt to satisfy his debts. At eighty years of age, he began planning the production of a magnificent flower picture that would command an astonishing sum. Sadly, he was never able to realize this ambition. On June 19, 1840, he suffered a stroke and died the following day (Blunt 1967).

Redouté, Pierre Joseph. Les liliacees. (1802-1815). v. 5. http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/300394. Digitized by Missouri Botanical Garden.

Today, Redouté is remembered as one of the greatest botanical illustrators in history. His original watercolors and related publications can fetch incredible prices at auction. For example, 468 of his original watercolors for Les liliacees sold at auction in 1985 for 5.5 million USD (Reif 1985). Thanks to the contributions of our incredible partners, you can access many of Redouté's works for free in BHL and even download and print your own copies of his masterpieces. What was once available only to the rich is now freely available to the world.

Bonpland, Aimé. Description des plantes rares cultivees a Malmaison et a Navarre. (1812-1817). Art by Pierre-Joseph Redouté. http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/275935. Digitized by Missouri Botanical Garden.

By: Grace Costantino
Outreach and Communication Manager
Biodiversity Heritage Library

References

• Blunt, Wilfrid. 1967. The Art of Botanical Illustration. London: Collins.
• Christie's. 1997. "Les Liliacées." Books, April 30. Accessed December 7, 2016. http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/lot/redoute-pierre-joseph-les-liliacees-text-by-186557-details.aspx.
• Christie's. 2008. "Les Roses." Foljambe Collection, April 30. Accessed December 7, 2016. http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/Lot/redoute-pierre-joseph-1759-1840-and-claude-antoine-thory-5062664-details.aspx.
• Dumbarton Oaks. 2016. "Les Roses." The Botany of Empire in the Long Eighteenth Century. Accessed December 6, 2016. http://doaks.org/resources/online-exhibits/botany-of-empire/illustration-and-representation/les-roses.
• Lack, H. Walter. 2001. Garden Eden: Masterpieces of Botanical Illustration. Koln: Taschen.
• Mathew, Brian. 1981. P.J. Redoute: Lilies and Related Flowers. New York: The Overlook Press.
• Missouri Botanical Garden. 2003. "Plantarum historia succulentarum = Histoire des plantes grasses." Rare Books from the MBG Library. Accessed December 7, 2016. http://www.illustratedgarden.org/mobot/rarebooks/title.asp?relation=SB438C361799V1.
• Reif, Rita. 1985. "Redoute Watercolors Auctioned to Syndicate." The New York Times, November 21. Accessed December 7, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/1985/11/21/arts/redoute-watercolors-auctioned-to-syndicate.html.
• University Libraries, University of South Carolina. 2013. "The W. Graham Arader, III Collection at the University of South Carolina: Journal." Accessed December 7, 2016. http://library.sc.edu/p/Collections/Arader.

Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker’s Antarctic Journal

By Cam Sharp Jones 
Project Officer, the Joseph Hooker Correspondence Project
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

2017 marks the bicentenary of Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker’s birth in the town of Halesworth in Suffolk, UK. During the course of his life (1817-1911), Hooker would become one of the most distinguished and lauded scientists of his day and would hold the position of Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew for 20 years (1865-1885).

Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker as a young man. Chalk portrait by George Richmond, 1855.

As part of Kew’s celebration of this important event, the Joseph Hooker Correspondence Project is pleased to announce that Hooker’s Antarctic Journal, the unpublished manuscript documenting his first major expedition, is now available online through our partner Biodiversity Heritage Library.

Hand written, the Journal is over 200 pages long and provides a detailed account of Hooker’s time as Assistant Surgeon on the HMS Erebus as part of Ross’s expedition to the Antarctic (1839-1843). The Journal also contains numerous pencil and watercolor sketches of the sights Joseph Hooker encountered during his 4 year adventure and provides important evidence for Hooker’s earlier interest in botanical science.

The voyage to the Antarctic was Hooker's first botanical expedition and he was aged just 22 on departure. The expedition lasted for four years, spending the winter months in New Zealand and Tasmania and then voyaging around the Antarctic continent during the summer months. The observations Hooker recorded in this journal and numerous other notebooks formed the basis of a flora of Antarctica and also of the wider regions visited.

Watercolour sketches of Mount Erebus and Mount Terror, names for the two ships that were part of the Ross expedition. The volcanos were first sighted on the 28th January 1841.

The Journal records much of the detail of Hooker’s time during the voyage and provides valuable insight into his scientific practices on board but also the day to day routine of the journey from the mundane to the hazardous. It also records Joseph’s feeling about the unique land and seascape of the region and the botanical discoveries he was making, which often left him awestruck. On a more whimsical note he also records the necessity for acquiring a taste for penguin soup, as the animals were the only source of fresh meat and were kept live on ship.

As part of the project to digitize the Journal, we have also assessed its conservation needs and undertaken necessary repairs and rehousing to ensure the long-time safety of this invaluable item. Prior to digitization, it was agreed that the early 20th century binding that housed the journal was not suitable and should be removed.

The Antarctic Journal during its assessment of what conservation it would need.

Once the binding was removed, it was discovered that the Journal was actually made up of a number of ‘volumes’ and certain pages had become loose.

The Journal unbound showing the different ‘volumes’ or ‘parts’ contained within the 20th century binding.

A number of the pages were also treated to stabilize the ink in a ‘bath’ to allow for more extensive repair work to be undertaken.

Pages from the Journal being treated to stabilize the ink.

Following this initial stage of the conservation, the Journal was digitized in preparation for its inclusion in the BHL online catalogue. It is hoped that by making the Journal freely available, a wider audience will be able to appreciate the important and valuable information contained in this unique item. This also speaks directly to the aims of the Joseph Hooker Correspondence Project, which is working to make Joseph Hooker’s correspondence freely available through the Project’s online portal.

We are now organizing for the Journal to be rebound sympathetically to its needs and in light of it being one of our most referenced Archival items here at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

We would like to thank Frederik Paulsen for supporting the conservation and digitization of Joseph Hooker’s Antarctic Journal and for helping to make it publicly available through the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

Related Links 

Joseph Hooker’s Antarctic Journal
View Joseph Hooker’s correspondence online
Kew Library, Art and Archives department
Joseph Hooker Correspondence Project

A Pot of Basil in Every Household

By: Julia Blakely 
Special Collections Cataloger 
Smithsonian Libraries

In Johann Prüss’ late 15^th-century herbal, Ortus Sanitatis (Garden of Health), a bushy basil plant is portrayed growing in a decorative container. The book, a popular pharmacopoeia of various remedies drawn from ancient and medieval authors, was intended to be practical. The woodcuts are somewhat stylized and simple, meant to be easily identifiable to readers such as a doctor, apothecary, spice merchant, monk, or household member.

This was a manual for ready reference at a time when literacy was not common and earlier written descriptions alone were found to be inadequate. For instance, the all-important roots of the peony, used for infantile epileptic seizure, jaundice, stomach-aches, and kidney and bladder problems, are emphasized rather than its beautiful, fragrant blossoms.

At the time, basil was applied to a number of ailments, including convulsion, deafness, diarrhea and constipation, gout, impotency, colic, and nausea. So is it significant that basil was illustrated in a pot? Medieval and Renaissance art is full of plant symbolism. Or is this portrayal simply a charmingly unexpected domestic detail?     

Ortus Sanitatis. 1497. Digitized by Smithsonian Libraries. http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/40535862.

Medieval herbals ascribed healing or poisonous ‘virtues,’ the natural properties of plants. Basil is one plant of the garden full of associations, both good and bad, sometimes contradictory. And a pot of basil has a long and colorful history.

Sweet basil (Ocimum basilicum) is an herb of the mint family Lamiaceae. It is native to parts of Asia and Africa. The name may be derived from the Greek βασιλικόν φυτόν (basilikón phutón)—royal or kingly plant. While many culinary authors and cooks consider basil the “king of herbs” for its versatility and dominance in the kitchen (particularly in Italian, Thai, Vietnamese and Laotian cuisines), it long has had royal and religious associations. Ocimum sanctum (holy basil or tulasi) is sacred in the Hindu religion, though not used much in Indian dishes. In Christianity, the herb came to be associated with the Feast of the Cross, celebrating the finding by St. Helena, mother of Emperor Constantine, of the True Cross in a patch of basil.

Ancient Greeks believed basil must be sowed with words of abuse in order to thrive. In both Eastern and Western societies the herb has been associated with death. In ancient Egypt it was applied in embalming rituals. It is also an herb much connected with love and fertility rites, and has been seen as a source of erotic powers. Or, conversely, a sprig of basil would whither in the hands of the impure.

In late Medieval and Renaissance Italy, basil in a pot was a sexy thing: on a windowsill alerts a lover that the lady of the house is available to be entertained. Or, in some accounts, such as in the early 15^th-century risqué tales of Sienese Gentile Sermini, its sudden removal was the signal it was safe to come on in. Apparently in some parts of present-day Southern Italy, a family notes the presence of an eligible, virginal daughter by a basil pot in the window.  

Scorpions. Woodcut from Conrad Gessner, Historia animalium. Liber 2, 1586 (BHL link here)

Plants and a Scorpion, in "Herbal" Manuscript folio 3v (Lombardy, Italy, around 1440). British Library Sloane 4016. This illustration indicates that a sting from a scorpion may be soothed by plants.

The Latin basilisk means dragon, mythical deadly reptile or serpent, sprouting legends of basil with scorpions. The arachnid with the venomous stinger was said to be bred out of mishandling the cultivated species of Ocimum. Scorpions were believed to favor hiding under a pot of basil, or that a spring of basil under a pot would turn into a scorpion. The Smithsonian's Floyd W. Shockley, Collections Manager (and scorpion expert) in the Department of Entomology of the National Museum of Natural History, points out that the cool dark underside of the pot is a natural place for scorpions to rest, accounting for their presence and not a particular attraction to the basil.  

In the pharmacopoeia on herbal medicine from the surviving writings of the ancient Greek physician and botanist Dioscorides, De Materia Medica, basil is prescribed for application to bites of the sea dragon or stings of the scorpion. Dr. Shockley notes there is some evidence that basil is effective in soothing scorpion stings and that the essential oil in the plant is anti-inflammatory and has pain-relieving enzymes. The plant would work to soothe the bites and stings of many arthropods, but ancient medicinal practitioners really focused on the scorpion relief aspect. Dioscorides observed that Africans would ingest the herb as a preventive measure against the pain of a sting. John Gerard in his famous 16^th-century herbal repeated this belief but reported that, as did the 2^nd-century physician Galen, basil should not be eaten.

Gerard in the Herball, or Generall Historie of Plantes of 1597, declared “The smell of Basil is good for the heart … it taketh away sorrowfulnesse which commeth of melancholy and maketh a man merry and glad.” Nicholas Culpeper in the 17^th century wrote: "And away to Dr. Reason went I, who told me it was an herb of Mars, and under the scorpion, and, perhaps therefore called basilican, and it is no marvel if it carry a kind of virulent quality with it.” And, noting the differing portrayals of the plant: “This is the herb which all authors are together by the ears about and rail at one another (like lawyers).”

Illustration of one type of basil in the Smithsonian Libraries' 1565 edition of Mattioli (BHL scan here)

Much of ancient plant folklore was dismissed by Pier Andrea Mattioli (1501-1577) in his commentaries on Dioscorides, Di Pedacio Dioscoride Anazarbeo Libri cinque Della historia, et materia medicinale. The work first appeared in 1544, with illustrations in the 1554 edition, and became the most influential Italian herbal of the 16^th century.

A medical doctor and botanist, born in Siena, the perennially grumpy Mattioli provides the delightful contemporary observation that basil was found to be growing in every Italian household, often in a pot placed by a window or in the garden. However, the finely cut illustrations in his herbal are without any whimsy such as a container. Likewise, Leonhart Fuchs’ splendid De Historia Stirpium (1542) notes this domestic element and illustrates different types of basil, including the roots, leaves, stems, and flowers. These publications are products of the Renaissance, knowledge drawn from direct observation and not legend, although much of the texts still rely on Dioscorides.

Fuchs: “Women everywhere raise Ocimun in clay pots on windowsills of their homes, also in gardens.” Smithsonian Libraries' copy scanned by BHL (link here)

Fuchs wrote that ozimum is Greek for fragrant. Basil has highly aromatic leaves and placed in a pot would serve to sweeten the air. Royal apothecary and botanist John Parkinson in Paradisi is Sole Paradisus Terrestris (1629) wrote that basil was sometimes used in nosegays and made “sweet or washing waters.” (Boston Public Library copy). In the home, the herb acted to keep flies out. Basil is, of course, sensitive to cold temperatures and planted (in Northern Europe) in a container would allow for easy moving to a warm shelter.

There are surviving examples of actual 15^th-century basil pots, known as alfabeguer (derived from the Arabic word for sweet basil). These decorative containers were imported from Valencia, supplying a demand for this luxury item throughout Europe. In the Rothschild collection at Waddesdon Manor is a beautiful one, decorated in lustre and blue, dating from 1440 to 1470.  

The Rothschild Alfabeguer (this and other illustrations of basil pots here).

Detail of Antonello da Messina's "St. Jerome in his Study," of alfabeguers (and kitten) approximately 1475 (National Gallery, London)

There is an earlier recording of basil pots used as decoration or furnishing in a home, and readers of Prüss’ herbals may have picked up on the allusion. In Giovanni Boccaccio’s The Decameron (Day IV, Novella 5) of approximately 1353, is the story of Lisabetta and Lorenzo. The lady’s three brothers murdered the lowly born Lorenzo to thwart the forbidden love between the servant and their sister. They buried the corpse in a location that came to her in a dream. Lisabetta dug up the grave, decapitated the head, and, returning home:

There she shut herself up in her room with the head, and kissed it a thousand times in every part, and wept long and bitterly over it, till she had bathed it in her tears. She then wrapped it in a piece of fine cloth, and set it in a large and beautiful pot of the sort in which marjoram or basil is planted, and covered it with earth, and therein planted some roots of the goodliest basil of Salerno, and drenched them only with her tears, or water perfumed with roses or orange-blossoms. And ‘twas her wont ever to sit beside this pot, and, all her soul one yearning, to pore upon it, as that which enshrined her Lorenzo, and when long time she had so done, she would bend over it, and weep a great while, until the basil was quite bathed in her tears.”

The basil thrived with this fertilization and watering, but the distraught Lisabetta did not: the evil brothers discovered poor Lorenzo’s head in the flowerpot and stole it away. She died from further grief.  

A more typical illustration of basil from an earlier period, showing the plant truncated. The Smithsonian Libraries' Gart der Gesundheit [Ulm?: Konrad Dinckmut?, 1487?], often attributed to Johannes von Cuba. The Missouri Botanical Garden's copy has been scanned by BHL (link here).

A version of Peter Schöffer’s Ortus ([H]ortus) Sanitatis (1485) was published in 1491 by Jacob Meydenbach of Mainz. Some of the more than a thousand small illustrations were copied rather crudely from Der Gart der Gesundheit (also of 1485), which itself was based on the Latin Herbarius of 1484 (Missouri Botanical Garden copy in BHL). Although there is an occasional genre scene (such as laborers) and landscape setting sprinkled throughout these early printed herbals, most of the plants are simply shown cut off at the stem. The first of Prüss’ editions of Meydenbach’s Ortus Sanitatis, printed in Strasbourg in 1497, is the Smithsonian Libraries’ copy which has been scanned for the Biodiversity Heritage Library.   

A pot of basil: may this be symbolic or practical, whether signifying divine or earthly love, used as a culinary ingredient or insect repellent, to soothe a sad soul, or just a convenient place to store a lover’s severed head. The iconography of the image in printed books, manuscripts and paintings is yet to be fully explored. The bibliography of early printed herbals—endless editions, translations, fragments, versions, and reuse and copying of woodcuts—is a complex and difficult task to sort out. But the increasing number of scanned early herbals in the Biodiversity Heritage Library allows for easy exploration of these extremely rare works. Perhaps Prüss’ Ortus Sanitatis has a unique basil pot because of an inventive author/illustrator. The book does contain a woodcut of the human skeleton, the first appearance of one in an herbal.

Should you happen upon any, please send me your finds of illustrations of basil in a pot. Or, a picture of the herb growing in a container on your windowsill.    

 

Notes

What is old is new again: basil oil from the local grocery store.

The first printed herbal to have illustrations is Macer Floridus’ De Viribus Herbarum (Milan, 1482). 

Di Pedacio Dioscoride Anazarbeo Libri cinque Della historia, et materia medicinale first appeared in 1544. It was soon reprinted many times in a variety of languages; there are several of these editions in the Smithsonian Libraries and many digitized versions in the Biodiversity Heritage Library (link to one here).

Blunt, Wilfrid and Sandra Raphael. The Illustrated Herbal. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1994.

Ray, Anthony. “The Rothschild ‘Alfabeguer’ and Other Fifteenth-Century Spanish Lustred ‘Basil-Pots’,” The Burlington Magazine, vol. 142, no. 1167 (June 2000), pages 371-375 (link here).

Poet John Keats picked up the narrative in “Isabella or, the Pot of Basil” (1818). In turn, British painters of the 19^th century, most notably by the Pre-Raphaelite William Holman Hunt, were greatly inspired by the story. 
  

Painting of 1867, by William Holman Hunt. Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne, England (image from Wikimedia Commons)

She wrapp’d it up; and for its tomb did choose
A garden-pot, wherein she laid it by,
And cover’d it with mould, and o’er it set
Sweet Basil, which her tears kept ever wet.

…

And so she ever fed it with thin tears,
Whence thick, and green, and beautiful it grew,
So that it smelt more balmy than its peers
Of Basil-tufts in Florence; for it drew
Nurture besides, and life, from human fears,
From the fast mouldering head there shut from view:
So that the jewel, safely casketed,
Came forth, and in perfumed leafits spread.

"Isabella, or the Pot of Basil," painting by Joseph Severn (1793-1879), a close friend of Keats (image from Wikimedia Commons). Guildhall Art Gallery, London. 

Ocimum basilicum 'Genovese Verde Migliorato'. The only variety for proper pesto.