Umbrella magnolia
Date
1731
Creator
Mark Catesby (1683 - 1749, British) , Naturalist
Object type
Library reference
18894
Material
Technique
Dimensions
height (print): 265mm
width (print): 355mm
width (print): 355mm
Subject
Content object
Description
Botanical study of an umbrella magnolia specimen, Magnolia tripetala, referred to here as Magnolia, amplissimo flore albo, showing leaf, flower and immature fruit details.
Written in the associated description: 'the Leaves are usually thirty Inches in Length, and about five broad at the widest Part, they grow in horizontal Circles, representing somewhat the Appearance of an Umbrella. From the middle of one of these Circles of Leaves rises the Flower, which is white'.
Plate 80 from volume II of Mark Catesby’s The natural history of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands (London, 1731).
Mark Catesby (1683-1749), British naturalist was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1733.
Written in the associated description: 'the Leaves are usually thirty Inches in Length, and about five broad at the widest Part, they grow in horizontal Circles, representing somewhat the Appearance of an Umbrella. From the middle of one of these Circles of Leaves rises the Flower, which is white'.
Plate 80 from volume II of Mark Catesby’s The natural history of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands (London, 1731).
Mark Catesby (1683-1749), British naturalist was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1733.
Object history
The Natural History was originally published in 10 parts, intended to be bound in 2 volumes. It was the earliest western scientific description of the flora and fauna of North America, and its copper plates were etched and hand-coloured by Catesby himself.
Catesby’s trips to North America were funded by a group of sponsors, many of whom were colonial governors, charged with managing the British Empire’s territories, and their support of Catesby’s research can be read as an exercise in colonial control. As The Natural History’s parts were issued it also became important as a reference text to naturalists attempting to order the natural world according to the ambitious taxonomic systems that characterized the mid-18th century.
Catesby’s trips to North America were funded by a group of sponsors, many of whom were colonial governors, charged with managing the British Empire’s territories, and their support of Catesby’s research can be read as an exercise in colonial control. As The Natural History’s parts were issued it also became important as a reference text to naturalists attempting to order the natural world according to the ambitious taxonomic systems that characterized the mid-18th century.
Associated place