Hunt Institute Archives Text Discovery Platform

Page transcription

All plates of the Fothergill album are reproduced in Ewan's book. The quality of the reproductions (by Meriden Gravure) is very high; a special effect has been reached by reproducing the full sheets in a grey cadre. The plates are reproduced in chronological order; a cross index to the numbers of the original drawings in the Fothergill volume is provided.

One further item merits special mention: the very extensive bibliography of nearly 250 items. This bibliography, the chronology, the analyses of the plates, the annotated manuscript, the biographical and iconographical chapters by Ewan are presented together with this fine series of sixty botanical and zoological drawings of no mean artistry, in an imposing volume of refined typography and delicate reproduction. This is undoubtedly the finest tribute so far paid to that pioneer of American botanical illustration, botanist, explorer and connoisseur of the American landscape, William Bartram.


WILD FLOWERS OF GREECE *

Frans A. Stafleu

Theophrastus (c. 370–285 B.C.) and his De Historia plantarum stand at the beginning of scientific botany. Botany was born with ancient Greek culture; previously plants had been studied only for their medicinal, economic or supposedly magical features. The study of plants for the sake of knowledge as such originated, with the other natural sciences, in the spiritual climate of Aristotle and Theophrastus. Four centuries later Greece yielded another botanist, of lesser scientific standing than Theophrastus, but for centuries of greater fame, Dioscorides, whose De Materia medica dominated Western botany for nearly sixteen centuries. Greek botany eclipsed during the Byzantine Empire. The Juliana Anicia Codex of Dioscorides (Codex vindobonensis) of the sixth century stands out as a monument of botanical illustration, and there were numerous recipe books, glossaries and other compilations; however, original scientific botanical research remained at low ebb in Theophrastus' country for many centuries.

Renewed study of the Greek flora arose from a 'special relationship' between Great Britain and Greece. Only a few years ago, in this journal (16: 168–178), Stearn recounted the story of John Sibthorp, John Edward Smith, John Lindley, Ferdinand Bauer, and the magnificent Flora Graeca. Anyone who opens the volume by Goulandris, Goulimis and Stearn will immediately associate its beauty with that of the earlier classic. This new volume of colour illustrations of Greek wild flowers (others may follow) can stand a comparison, not in size but in quality and general execution, with that greatest of all illustrated floras, the Flora Graeca.

Greek botany remained a non-Greek affair long after Sibthorp and Smith's time. Many British botanists and horticulturists were attracted by the riches of the Greek


* Wild Flowers of Greece, painted by Niki A. Goulandris, text by Constantine N. Goulimis, edited by W. T. Stearn. Publication of the Goulandris Botanical Museum [5, Levidou St.,] Kifissia, Athens, Greece. 1968. 214 pp., 119 coloured plates, linen bound, 38 x 28 cm. Price (prepublication) US $ 40.–

VOLUME 18
AUGUST 1969
445