The Final Duchess of Beaufort's Flowers

 

Orbea Variegata

This is the last of the succulent prints from the Duchess of Beaufort's flowers, and it depicts what would be then a Stapelia from the Asclepiadaceae, but is now better known as Orbea variegata from the much expanded Apocynaceae. Cottesloe writes:

Frankcom painted two very different plants which he called apocynum, the cactus-like one in this picture and in another illustration a convolvulus like plant. Both, however, have the same star-like flowers differing only in size.* Apocynum is also known as dogbane, from apo, 'away' and kyon 'a dog', in other words 'keep away from dogs as it is poisonous'.** All this family have poisonous milky sap but some are treated so that they can be used for emetic and cathartic purposes. The latex of some species has also provided a substitute for rubber when for some reason the latter was not available. 

This particular plant is often called the carrion plant, for it has the foetid smell of rotting flesh*** which  nevertheless appears to attract insects. The five-petalled star-like flower is quite characteristic with its green centre and purple-brown spots on pale yellow. The cactus-like leaves are actually thick fleshy stems, four-angled and deeply toothed, with perhaps an incipient leaf on the ends of some. They are found in South Africa as low-growing succulents on sand and need greenhouse protection in Britain.

The flower has a curious habit of folding over its petals when an insect alights on it which is clearly seen in the flower on the left of the painting****. The insect is trapped and is probably an aid to fertilization as this plant is not recorded as a carnivorous one. 

At a later date this species was given the name of Stapelia by Linnaeus after a seventeenth-century horticulturalist from Amsterdam called Van Stapel, who edited Theocrates' works. It belongs to the genus Asclepidaceae called after the god of medicine Asclepius, who was generally shown supported by Hygeia, the goddess of wise living and Panakeia, the goddess of cure-alls. It is interesting to note that curative methods of medicine today always advocate good hygiene and sometimes the use of pink pill as a panacea, so the goddesses could still be considered as supports for medicine. 

*Would love to know what the plate used, this unknown "sclep" is depicted on. I have a feeling its a Hoya of some kind but star-like flowers could be anything. Only the age of its discovery will narrow it down. 

** Pretty much this, its now placed in with the Oleander family of plants so if not lethally poisonous then its not the wisest to eat. The link up on the top paragraph links to the wikipedia page with its uses.

*** I used to grow this and can vouch that it does smell a bit, but unlike many of its ilk you'll need to get in close to smell it. Trust me, there are far worse smelling plants in this family.

**** No it just means that the flower has gone over. Orbea like many in this family have a massively complex means of pollination, I've heard of people using cats whiskers in order to pollinate several of these species. With seed set the plant will set out two horn like fruit which will split open to release some masses of seeds attached to cotton-like fluff.

The Duchess of Beaufort's flowers pt5

Mammillaria

 We come to the penultimate entry, labelled as an Echinocactus, when it clearly is a Mammillaria, replete with its ring of fruit. Gordon Rowley, of course, has this down as Mammillaria mammillaris and as I know and grow few Mammillaria's beside the most commonest ones, I'll agree with our former society chair here. Some real "comedy" here as the text claims that its a species of Lithops when you can plainly see its been bisected to show it internals. Gordon puts it much more succinctly, below.

This unusual picture shows examples of flowering plants on a scree or base of rocks, obviously indoors* for these are xerophytic plants which only thrive in hot dry climates.

**Echimilocactus is the name given to the round cactus in the centre, probably now called Echinocactus grusonii***. Echino means 'like a hedgehog' which is an  apt designation. The spines are numerous and are arranged like white stars with a spacing reminiscent of the geometrical pattern found in fir cones and pineapples****. These spines protect the plant from animals but have the power of  collecting any moisture that may be around and delaying transpiration from the epidermis, the thickened skin of the plant. There are deep ridges which help with the storage of water; the moist milky inside of the plant allows it to live a long time without rain, especially as it is an economical spherical shape. The red flowers and fruits***** are decoratively arranged around the plant's equator. 

The white flower****** below the cactus is probably another example of a xerophyte in full flower, a daisy-like Lithops flower from South Africa. Lithops is a species of Aizoaceae; its name means 'like a stone'. It is indeed difficult to distinguish them from  the stones and pebbles among which they grow, especially the Marmorata or marbled type. 

According to the description written by Frankcom, the small succulents on the right came from America and had milky-white flowers and red pyramid-shape fruits. Most of the cacti came from tropical America and would have been collectors' pieces in the seventeenth century. 

*My stupid brain thought that this would have been a sketch from real life, but it seems that its a copy of a copy of a painting by Commelijn. Rowley talks about an Orangery where this was grown and I'd hope there was some sort of bed and rock arrangement where these where grown, or at least some terracotta pots.

** Echimilocactus is a name I haven't heard before, and neither has the internet it seems. Maybe valid in the 18th century but not now. 

*** So wrong, its Mammillaria mammillaris Ironically, although the golden barrel cactus is mentioned it's now in its own species as Kroenleinia rather than Echinocactus. A species I think is spectacularly ugly. 

**** See Fibonacci  for what is going on here, and yes, Mammillaria has tubercles rather than ribs so it works.

***** Only the fruits are red in this and Frankcom's description below of the plants is correct. The plant comes from the Caribbean islands and down into Venezuela and I wonder what the extent of it is in that benighted country. 

****** Wrong its been cut in half to expose the stem and show how where the milky sap comes from.   I have seen photos of cross sections of Lithops stems to show the leaves and stem as well. As for tropical America its more like the dry deserts of the Americas both south and north along with Mexico. 

The Duchess of Beaufort's Flowers pt4

Finally my room is back to what it was and this time  we have an Aloe arborescens in flower as our subject. The text has states:

There are over a dozen pictures in the manuscripts of the plant, *Aloe. The one illustrated here was painted by Frankcom who chose to paint the flowering specimens. Those painted by Kychicus were representative of the plants grown from seed which came from the Cape of Good Hope, some still in seedling form. 

Wild Aloes are shrubby xerophytes which are able to adapt themselves to dry conditions by thickening their leaves to hold reserves of water as does the cactus. The leaves form a rosette around the stem out of which the flowers grow, bur some have a stalk or trunk** which can reach a height of twenty or thirty feet in their native country. Those the Duchess grew may have come from South Africa, but at a later date they were imported from Abyssinia and Madagascar, where it is said the juice of tree aloes is used medicinally as a purgative.

It is popular as a house plant as the rosettes of thick fleshy leaves are very varied, often with a triangular section and prickles on the margin which may be crowded or few, green white or yellow. The leaves may have white patches or stripes. The flowering stems may be branched and the flowers can vary from a drab olive green and yellow to a bright pinkish orange***. They are mostly They are mostly tubular and clustered rather like a small red hot poker (Kniphofia). The one depicted by Frankcom has flowers with a green tip to the orange incurving perianth. Frankom describes it in the index as having a stalk below the rosette, leaves encircling the stem, plain not spotted, and states that he painted it in 1703 and it came from Africa. It comes early in his book so perhaps it was one of his first paintings hence his more than usually detailed note.

Gordon Rowley writes in Bradleya that the notes to this were confused with an Agave, with is massive terminal flower spike in contrast to the more regular annual flowering of Aloes.

Incidentally I'm not sure who the Frankcom mentioned as artist in this could be. A search brings up a watchmaker and engraver of the same name but not an artist.

* Rowley logs this as ten instances of 7 different species.

** These tree Aloes are now treated as a separate species, Aloidendron. Indeed, looking at the list on Wiki, they do indeed, come from South Africa, Arabia and parts of east Africa. 

*** Aloe flowers range from yellow and orange to pink and a brickish red, with albiflora a rare outlier with white flowers. They all have green tips to the flowers, which remain straight rather than in Gasteria which is allied to them, but who's flowers are bent like a stomach and remain in a line unlike Aloes whose flowers are shrubby and branching.