White Gallery

Dillenia speciosa Thunb

Watercolour on paper, no date (late 18th early 19th century). Hand painted copy of an illustration commissioned by William Roxburgh. In his Flora Indica, Roxburgh reports: ...it is a native of the vallies, far up amongst the Circar mountains; is also found cultivated in some gardens on account of its elegant appearance. He also mentions how the fleshy leaflets of the calyx, when the fruit is mature, are used by the natives in their curries

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

Decabelone barklyi, 1875

Hand coloured lithograph of Decabelone barklyi, currently accepted as Tavaresia barklyi. This is a colour proof for plate 6203, from Curtis's Botanical
Magazine, published 1st December 1875.
According to Joseph Dalton Hooker, this species has been found in Little Namaqualand and in the Karoo, near the Orange River. The original illustration is partly based upon a drawing for which Kew is indebted to Mrs. Barber and partly upon specimens which flowered at Kew

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

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

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

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