Umbrella magnolia
Date
1731
Creator
Mark Catesby (1683 - 1749, British) , Naturalist
Object type
Library reference
18894
Material
Technique
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. Travelling under the auspices of the Royal Society, Catesby recorded the earliest western scientific descriptions of the flora and fauna of the ‘New World’. He was the first naturalist to use folio-sized colour plates in a natural history book, and etched the copper plates himself before hand-colouring each individual print with watercolours.
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. Travelling under the auspices of the Royal Society, Catesby recorded the earliest western scientific descriptions of the flora and fauna of the ‘New World’. He was the first naturalist to use folio-sized colour plates in a natural history book, and etched the copper plates himself before hand-colouring each individual print with watercolours.
Associated place
Credit
©The Royal Society
Image number
RS.18824