Leaf Gallery

Seedlings of Cinchona succirubra, India, 1861

Seedlings of Cinchona succirubra, photographed on arrival in Ootacamund, southern India, 9 April 1861. Collected by Richard Spruce in Ecuador, the plants were received by WIlliam McIvor, a former Kew gardener, who was superintendent of the Botanic Garden in Ootacamund, where he successfully cultivated the red bark trees. Extracts of the bark of Cinchona produced quinine, a malaria medicine

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

Study of Coco de Mer - Lodicea sechellarum

Illustration of the germinating nut, a snake twined around one of the trees and also a drawing of the cross section of the nut. The illustration includes hand written notes by Gordon on different aspects of the plant.
Major Charles George Gordon, (Charley Gordon and later Chinese Gordon') was one of the most celebrated soldiers and diplomats of the Victorian era. A somewhat eccentric character, Gladstone described him as a hero, and a "hero of heroes". His violent death at Khartoum was commemorated by George William Joy's painting General Gordon's Last Stand (1885). Sir Joseph Hooker enlisted Gordon's services in the collection of plants while Charles was appointed Governor of the Egyptian Equatorial Provinces. In 1881, Gordon went as Commanding Royal Engineer to Mauritius, and while visiting the Seychelles became interested in the Coco-de-mer. Specimens of both this tree and the breadfruit tree were sent by Gordon to Kew. In 1882 Gordon also sent an illustrated letter to Kew outlining the possibility of the Seychelles being the site of the Biblical Garden of Eden, also suggesting that the breadfruit tree was the Tree of Life and the Coc-de-Mer the Tree of Knowledge

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

Fallopia japonica - Japanese Knotweed

Tab.6503. - Fallopia japonica as Polygonum cuspidatum the original illustration is by Anne Barnard, watercolour on paper, 1880;
The plate, 6503, was published in Curtis's Botanical Magazine, volume 106, and is a hand-coloured lithograph by John Nugent Fitch after the original drawing by Anne Barnard, 1880

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