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The Travels, published in 1791, were illustrated with drawings by William Bartram himself. If judged on the basis of these drawings, William would hardly merit mention in the annals of botanical illustration. Wilfrid Blunt, in his The art of botanical illustration, mentions Bartram only incidentally. The present publication of the Fothergill albums of Bartram drawings, however, makes it clear that even though Bartram does not rank with Ehret, the Bauers or Redouté, he may be regarded as an artist of high distinction with several surprisingly beautiful botanical and zoological illustrations to his credit. Bartram's famous drawing of Franklinia alatamaha (1788), featured on the frontispiece, and the picture of the Green Heron (pl. 44) represent indeed, as Ewan points out, the apogee of his artistry. A comparison between the 'Amona (Asimina obovata)' in the Travels with that in the Fothergill album (pl. 45, fig. 1) explains the discrepancy in the evaluation of William Bartram's artistic accomplishment. The picture in the Travels is flat and crude, even when the loss of detail through engraving and reproduction is taken into account; that in the Fothergill album is sensitive and very much alive. The Bartram Asiminas are an interesting example of the extent of his botanical discoveries: he encountered five then undescribed species on his journeys. Two are illustrated in the Travels: A. secundiflora (erroneously named 'Anona pygmea' on the plate) and 'Anona grandiflora', now correctly named (fide Ewan) Asimina obovata.
The drawing of Franklinia, perhaps the finest of the whole collection, was originally made for the English amateur botanist Robert Barclay, but it is now also preserved in the Fothergill album. The plant is also illustrated very nicely on plate 23 of the album itself. Ewan, in his extensive commentary, uses the opportunity to correct some misconceptions persistent in the literature. Franklinia was discovered by the Bartrams together on 1 October 1765; the last mention of it in the literature is by John Lyon, who saw '6 to 8 full grown trees' on 1 June 1803. 'Almost everything about Franklinia is fabulous...' It is fortunate that the Bartram garden kept the germ plasm of this beautiful relict genus alive, thus preserving for posterity an example of a botanical Sino-American alliance. Ewan's text does ample justice to William Bartram, as well as to his drawings. The great scholarship of the doyen of historians of American botany accounts for an unusually well-documented and detailed account of Bartram's life and for an exhaustive commentary on the plates and accompanying manuscripts. The introduction contains biographical chapters, evaluating Bartram as a naturalist, artist and explorer. The detailed biographical data are brought together in a chronology entitled The world of William Bartram which, notwithstanding its dryly enumerative style, presents a fascinating account of early American botany and of the relations between the botanists in the motherland and those overseas in colonial times.
In his discussion of the plates themselves Ewan provides taxonomic and historical information, often quoting from unpublished sources and giving details on nomenclature, literature, typification and herbarium specimens. This part of the book is of direct relevance for taxonomy. Ewan accepts, with Merrill, the validity of William Bartram's binomials as published in the Travels, a position amply justified by the quotations from published as well as unpublished material. The Appendix contains extracts from the manuscripts which accompanied the illustrations and specimens sent to Fothergill and Barclay. These comments often contain interesting side remarks on dates of first collection or introduction of now widely known plants. Ilicium floridanum, for instance, was collected first by Bartram in northern Florida in the winter of 1766, nine years earlier than the date quoted by the author of the name, John Ellis. Bartram referred to the plant as 'Anisum stellatum'; plate 3 of the present book is the earliest known drawing of the plant, the flowers of which inspired the editor of this journal in his choice of this year's cover.
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WILD FLOWERS
Frans A. Stafleu
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• Wild Flowers of edited by W. T. S Kifissia, Athens, Gr (prepublication) US
