Botanical Art Gallery

270. Distant View of Kinchinjunga from Darjeeling

Tree Ferns and Oaks, festooned with Thunbergia coccinea, Roxb., in the foreground. Kinchinjunga is 28, 136 feet high, and the highest mountain in the world except the neighbouring Mount Everest, which is 29, 002 feet high, and Peak K. 2 in the Karakora

© RBG KEW

Art, Artist, Darjeeling, Foreground, Kinchinjunga, Landscape, Leaves, Marianne North, Mount Everest, Mountains, Oaks, Painting, Snow Peaks

244. Singular Plants of the Dark Forests of Singapore and Borneo

These highly curious organisms are members of a small family (the Burmanniaceae), related to the Orchidaceae. Some of them draw their nourishment from decaying vegetable matter, hence are called saprophytes ; some from the roots of other plants to wh

© RBG KEW

Art, Artist, Borneo, Flower, Forest, Leaves, Marianne North, Painting, Singapore, Yellow

Cactus indicus

Watercolour on paper, no date (late 18th century). Hand painted copy of an illustration commissioned by William Roxburgh. Roxburgh noted in his Flora Indica that this cactus was common around Calcutta, and concluded there is every reason to imagine it is a native of these countries'. These plants were probably introduced to India from the West Indies as early as the late 15th Century, initially for their fruit, and later for the dye made from cochineal insects (Dactylopius coccus) which infect these plants. The drawing includes studies of these insects, the winged male can be seen far right, the female with her protective white covering in several stages on the left. It is likely that there are actually three plant species represented on this drawing. Fig.1 is possibly Opuntia stricta/dillenii, Fig.2 Nopalea cochenillifera, and Fig.3 Opuntia tuna

© The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew