This lovely artistic antique botanical flower print, circa
1925, was extracted from an old folio of flower prints whose goal was to present
all the wild flowers native to North America at that time. The species are presented
in more scientific presentation used by biologists and scientists, which is
as a close-up of the flower on its own on a white background. This famous artist
has captured the exquisite detail in the leaves, petals, stem and flower buds.
Given the changing world climate and decline in forest and wildlands over the
last century, the flowering plants from this series are in many cases quite
rare in their wild ecological habitat and are most likely found being cultivated
in a florist garden store or greenhouse. Once framed, this print would make
a fine interior decorating accent in a family room or sun room porch. Great
gift for the Rocky Mountain guide or backwoods hiker.
DESCRIPTION OF FLOWER: Tillandsia fasciculata Swartz
In motoring from lower Virginia southward, the ever increasing abundance of
epiphytic plants is striking. In southern Virginia, Spanish moss frequently
drapes the trees, especially the bald cypress. Farther down the coast other
species of the Pineapple Family make their appearance, and in Florida a number
of different kinds are native. In some of the hammocks there, all the branches
of the trees and even the bark of the trunk, serve for the attachment of bromeliads,
orchids, and ferns, and the epiphytic plants are represented by many different
species. In such a hammock a short distance north of West Palm Beach, Florida,
the specimen here illustrated was obtained. The tillandsia usually dies after
flowering, but its minute seeds, with their tufts of silky hairs, are scattered
by the winds. The leaves of these plants are dilated at the base, thus forming
a series of pockets which catch and hold water. Vegetable debris, as well as
atmospheric dust, falls into the water and the plant absorbs the products of
its de- cay, thus obtaining much of its nourishment. Quill-leaf tillandsia ranges
from southern Florida south through the West Indies, and is widely distributed
in other parts of tropical America.
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ABOUT THE ARTIST: Mary Morris Vaux received a set of watercolor paints at age
eight and began experimenting with painting flowers. The Philadelphia family
spent summers in the Canadian Rockies where Mary and her brothers studied mineralogy
and recorded the flow of glaciers in paintings. Mary returned to western Canada
almost every summer and became an active mountain climber and outdoorswoman.
One summer a botanist asked her to paint a rare blooming arnica; her success
in recording the flower encouraged her to concentrate on botanical illustration.
For many years, on foot or horseback, she explored difficult terrain looking
for important flowering species to paint. In 1913 Mary Vaux met Charles Doolittle
Walcott, then secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, while both were in the
Canadian Rockies--she painting and hiking, he conducting geological research.
After marrying the next year, the couple spent several months each season in
the Canadian Rockies where he continued his studies and she painted hundreds
of watercolor studies of native flowers. At the urging of botanists and wild
flower enthusiasts, in 1925 a selection of more than four hundred of Mary Walcott's
illustrations were published by the Smithsonian Institution. Currently 791 watercolor
drawings by Walcott are in the collection of the National Museum of American
Art.
ARTIST'S DESCRIPTION OF HER ARTWORK: Wild flowers were a joy and inspiration
in the happy days of childhood when I was taught to observe and sketch them
under the direction of a skilled artist. Years passed before a botanical friend
at Glacier, British Columbia, asked me to portray a rare and perishable alpine
flower so as to preserve its beauty, color, and graceful outline as a living
thing. During succeeding seasons I painted other rare specimens until many of
the "living flowers that skirt the eternal frost" in the wildflower
gardens of the Canadian Rockies were transferred in color and form to the East,
where sketches of the native woodland and meadow blossoms soon began to join
them. During the past ten years I have spent from three to four months each
season in the Canadian Rockies, where Dr.Walcott was carrying on geological
explorations, covering in all more than five thousand miles on the mountain
trails. This afforded me a wonderful opportunity for intimate study of the flora,
my aim being to collect and paint the finest specimens obtainable, and to depict
the natural grace and beauty of the plant without conventional design. Many
of the western sketches were made under trying conditions. Often, on a mountain
side or high pass, a fire was necessary to warm stiffened fingers and body.
In camp, the diffused light of the white tent was a great handicap, and considerable
ingenuity was required to obtain a proper combination of light and shade. The
paint box and pads found safe conveyance on the back of the saddle, except in
unusual storms of rain or snow, and many times while waiting for the pack train
to be made ready, a sketch was begun or completed. The short lives of the blooming
plants definitely limit the number of sketches that can be made during a single
field season, for many hours of work are necessary to finish a single sketch,
and wild flowers wither quickly. A sharp frost in July or early August will
ruin them, or an unusually warm, dry season or a cold, wet one will prevent
flowering or kill the blossoms that have matured. For these reasons desirable
specimens of many of the fragile alpine flowers are difficult to secure, and
in some instances were seen in perfection but two or three times during the
many seasons on the trail. The limited habitat of others made it necessary to
take long rides and climb high above the timber line to procure them, and frequently
no trails were available. Our sure-footed mountain ponies were a large factor
in our success. Both the bloom and the fruit of a few trees have been sketched
with the hope that these exquisite forms may be more observed and appreciated
by nature lovers. The illustrations of eastern plants have been made from specimens
collected as opportunity offered and from those contributed by many friends.
All the sketches are life size.
As time went on and the collection grew, botanists, artists, and others interested
in flowers began to urge that the water-color sketches should be permanently
preserved and made available for students and lovers of the beautiful in Nature,
before the dust of time faded and browned them to the hues of the pressed flowers
of the herbaria. A survey of wild flower publications led to the decision that
there was need for a finely illustrated work that would be of service pictorially
to all professional and amateur botanists and designers, and to the larger group
of lovers of wild flowers and the great out-of-doors. To many of these the living
flowers are inaccessible, and their real beauty is unknown. No attempt has been
made to create a text book with technical descriptions, or to illustrate all
native American wild flowers, and only native plants have been included.
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PRINT DATE: This lithograph was printed in 1925; it is not a modern reproduction.
PRINT SIZE: Print dimensions are 9 inches by 12 inches including white borders.
PRINT CONDITION: Condition is excellent. Bright and clean. Blank on reverse.
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