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In the 1840s, when British botanist William Griffith came across the rare holoparasitic flowering plant Sapria himalayana in Arunachal Pradesh, there were not enough ways to document it.
Details
- A botanical portrait of the root parasite plant with bright red flowers and sulphur yellow dots was made as early as in 1842 hundreds of miles away, near Kolkata.
- Botanical painting was crucial to the discovery of numerous other such plants, including the Eulophia nuda, an orchid painted by G.C.
- Dass in May 1862 at the same historic location, the Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Indian Botanic Garden.
- Thousands of such botanical paintings, unique and almost two centuries old, are rare and valuable not only because of the artistic talent of their Indian painters but also because they highlight the country’s plant diversity.
- The Central National Herbarium of the Kolkata-based Botanical Survey of India (BSI) has the biggest collection of 3,280 large botanical painting.
Father of Indian botany
- Scottish botanist and physician, William Roxburgh (1751-1815), is also known as the father of the Indian botany for his contribution to plant taxonomy in India.
- Earlier this month, the Botanical Survey of India digitised the entire collection of Roxburgh drawings held by it.
Source: The Hindu
