Botanical drawings

FIGURE 2.2 Early-17th-century botanical drawings of H. tuberosus by (a) Colonna (1616), (b) Lauremberg (1632), and (c) Parkinson (1640). 

This botanical drawing of Tabernanthe iboga, the major source of ibogaine and related alkaloids, was made in 1901 by Albert Landrin. 

Old botanical drawing of an opium poppy, showing details of the unripe pods with incisions to permit the flow of opium. (Courtesy of the Harvard College Library)... 

Paracelsus, often regarded as the father of alchemy, first became acquainted with Cannabis products while in Basel, Switzerland, where the pharmaceutical firm of Sandoz now stands. It was also there that the botanist Leonhardt Fuchs sketched a charming, classic drawing of the sativa plant in 1543- By this time, the inebriating effects of sativa % resin had been discovered by Europeans. Francois Rabelais, writing in the early sixteenth century devoted three small chapters of his Third Book of Pantegruel to this herb s botanical and psychoactive properties. 

As colors and textures of plants usually change as the specimen dries, and the general shape may be altered by pressing, photographs or accurate drawings are an important part of any botanical collection. The appearance of the living plant is an important part of the data on a specimen. Photos may also record the environment in which the plant was found, and what other species were present. 

Figures 36-37. Drawings from Edgar Anderson, Plants, Man, and Life (Boston Little, Brown, 1952), pp. 138-39. Used by permission of the Missouri Botanical Garden.

The author is greatly thankful to Dr. Michael P. Cava, Dr. Philip W. LeQuesne, Dr. M. V. Lakshmikantham, Dr. Robert E. Loeb for helpful discussions, Nicholas DeAntonio for library work and drawing structures. Dr. R. C. Bameby, Dr. Wayt Thomas for botanical information, and Dr. G. M. Cragg for information on NCI testing of plant extracts. 

Figure 4-1 Piper methysticum Forst. f. drawing showing the general appearance of the kava plant. CaUbration bar equals 4 cm. Reproduced from Lebot and Levesque (1989) Allertmta, 5(2), 223—280, with permission from the National Tropical Botanical Garden.

Schultes, R.E. and A Bright 1977. A native drawing of an hallucinogenic plant from Colombia Botanical Museum Leaflets Harvard University 25(6) 151-159. 

After his return to Spain, Hernandez s New World botanical information had a sad destiny. The original manuscript and drawings still unpublished were passed along with his Mexican plant vouchers and deposited in the "Escorial" Royal Library, where a fire destroyed them in 1671. Fortunately, a summary ordered by the King of Spain and written by Nardo Antonio Recco before Hernandez s death was still available. The "Accademi dei Lincei" in Rome started the task of publishing it in 1610. 

The botanical assessment of "zoapatle" was possible from an old drawing found in Hernandez s History of the Plants of New Spain by the Mexican naturalist Francisco Cervantes in the XVIII century "Fig. (2). A recent translation of the use of M. tomentosa as recorded by Sahagiin more than 400 years ago [17], indicates succinctly "(The) Whole leaves of Cihuapatli are boiled, what is extracted and well cooked is useful to women that feel their womb is ready for childbirth. First, (you see the)... 

Hehmens (2002) Hermens, E. Memories of Beautiful Colours. The Mariani treatise and the practice of miniature painting, landscape drawing and botanical illustration at the Pesaro court in early-seventeenth century Italy. Unpubhshed Ph.D. thesis, Universiteit Leiden (2002)... 

The content of the book draws heavily on the work of our laboratory, particularly on the chemistry of hop bitter acids, to an extent which may seem excessive to some readers, especially compared to chapters on general aspects of hops and on the analysis of bitter acids. These are indeed far from complete and even more reflect our subjective views. A book covering all aspects of hops science would, however, fill several volumes as large as the present one. The botanic aspects, the harvesting. 

At this stage a representative, mature, preferably sterile specimen of each species was selected and sent to a professional botanical illustrator, with instructions regarding any particular characters which were to be emphasised in the drawing, such as stipules, hollow twigs or fruit characters. Photocopied versions of the illustrations were returned to the authors for comparison with the specimens and to ensure that all the important characters were clear modifications were requested and the photocopies returned, in a process that continued backwards and forwards (thanks to the patience of the illustrator) until the drawings were considered ready for publication. The originals were then scanned at 720 dpi to produce electronic copies for inclusion in the manual. 

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