Adansonia digitata, Willd. (Baobab or Upside-down tree)

Purchase This Item For Download
world rights, single editions, non exclusive use
Other options available, please contact us for more details
Watercolour on paper, no date (late 18th early 19th century). Hand painted copy of an illustration commissioned by William Roxburgh (1751-1815). In his Flora indica Roxburgh describes this plant as a tree which is very scarce in India, and probably not a native of Asia'. Roxburgh tells that in the Botanic Garden of Calcutta, where this tree blossoms in May and June, and ripens its seed in the cool season, there is a 25 years old plant of Adansonia digitata, with an irregular, short and sub-conical trunk, which is 18 feet in circumference. In a letter sent to Roxburgh the 2nd of July 1802, from Mantolle, in Sri Lanka, General Hay Macdowell notes: In my walk last night on the ruins of this once rich and extensive city, called by the natives Mande or Maddoo-ooltum, I chanced to observe a tree whose prodigious magnitude induced me to measure it...fifty feet in circumference, above six feet from the ground, the natives call it Peerig, and from what I have been able to collect, it is not indigenous here
Copyright © The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Media ID 654422
Date: 3rd December 2007
Credit: © The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Filename: ROX00000238.jpg
Image Size: 3600 x 5112 Pixels
Filesize is 8.79MB
Version 2 is 3.79MB
Associated Categories: William Roxburgh
Keywords: 19th century, bombacaceae, botanical art, east india company, india, tree, white, william roxburgh collection