Watercolour On Paper Gallery

Urania speciosa, Willd.(Ravenala madagascariensis, Travellers Palm')

Watercolour on paper, undated (late 18th, early 19th century). Hand painted copy of an illustration commissioned by William Roxburgh (1751-1815). In Flora Indica Roxburgh recalls In 1802 three plants of this elegant tree were brought from the Island of Mauritius by Capt. Tennant to the Botanic Garden at Calcutta. They were planted in different soils, and situations. That which was in a very moist place, and in a rich brownish black soil, throve more luxuriantly than the other two, though in a soil equally rich but lighter coloured, much higher and drier; the former flowered for the first time about the close of 1806 and again in September, 1807

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

Strychnos potatorum, Willd. (Clearing nut)

Watercolour on paper. Hand painted copy of an illustration commissioned by William Roxburgh (1751-1815). In Flora Indica, Roxburgh notes that this species is found exclusively in the ...mountains and woods of great extent, where it flowers during the hot season. Inscribed Received from Rodney 9th June 1791, in an unknown hand, referring to the East India Company ship which delivered the drawings to London. The plant is rubbed inside water-vessels, it causes precipitation of impurities in cloudy water, also used as a medicine and timber source

© RBG KEW