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