![Hexand. Mono. [Mimusops obovata] (1817) (Hexand. Mono. [Mimusops obovata] (1817)) - Drawings of plants collected at Cape Town](/upload/nat/drawings-of-plants-collected-at-cape-town/005-original.webp)
Hexand. Mono. [Mimusops obovata] (1817)
香榄属
Hexand. Mono. [Mimusops obovata] (1817)
Ten ways of seeing
- measured cast amber
- slightly upright 1.23 : 1
First Look
论画以形似，见与儿童邻。
—— 宋·苏轼《书鄢陵王主簿所画折枝》
To judge painting by likeness alone is the view of a child.
Slightly taller than wide; the eye lands above centre. Then step in close: watch where colour meets line, and whether the line ever breaks. Third, find the darkest small patch: the whole tonal order is measured from there.
Name and Thing
No reliable binomial survives, so the printed title must serve. The Chinese name 香榄属 is a modern rendering of the Latin, not an old garden name.
Form and Colour
Measured on this plate: flower colour covers 3.2% of the sheet, foliage 11.2%, the cast amber with a second note of yellow-green. No other plate shares exactly this measure. A botanical plate: one plant lifted from field or glasshouse and set at the centre of the sheet, root, stem, leaf, flower and fruit in turn, made legible, citable, transmissible.No colour group is recorded. Three things fix the habit: leaf arrangement, tepal count, and how the flower is borne.
Composition
The sheet is slightly tall. No details are appended: a plate for looking, not for keying out. The plant covers only 17% of the sheet, centred above centre; the emptiness is where the eye rests.
Line and Colour
The first half of the nineteenth century moved from copper to steel to lithography; stipple could render the softest transition. Take a loupe to three places: petal edge, leaf vein, caption. An unbroken line means engraving; colour crossing the outline means a hand. If you mean to copy it: take its skeleton, its margins and the order of its colours; the burin's hatching is the language of copper — suggest it with pencil density, do not imitate it stroke for stroke.
Poetic Resonance
朝饮木兰之坠露兮，夕餐秋菊之落英。
—— 战国·屈原《离骚》
At dawn I drink the dew fallen from magnolia; at dusk I dine on the fallen petals of autumn chrysanthemum.
The poem gives the mood first and the picture supplies the form; set the line beside the plate and the corolla becomes its resting point.
Symbolism
The symbolism of such a plate lies not in flower lore but in record: the belief that a plant deserves to be drawn accurately — the plainest ethic of the scientific age. In a flora it is a species first and a symbol second; the order is worth keeping.
Season and Place
the rest of the year it is only a mass of leaves. Various: local hillside or a plant brought from overseas. The nineteenth-century botanic garden and glasshouse were their first address away from home. The year 1817 on the plate is that of publication, not of flowering — the gathering came a year or two earlier. The bud and the ripe fruit on one branch tell the season; the name in the title often tells the journey.
The Book and the Hand
“Drawings of plants collected at Cape Town” carries only Clemenz Heinrich Wehdemann's name. A plate is collective work: drawer, engraver and colourist were different hands, and the unnamed ones decided how good it looks.
What to Take Away
Appreciation is not knowledge but habit — one more look each time. The flower of that year is dust, yet its image on paper has outlived every living cousin.
About this plate
Hexand. Mono. [Mimusops obovata] (1817) is plate 5, from Drawings of plants collected at Cape Town, drawn by Clemenz Heinrich Wehdemann. This public-domain plate is reproduced at high resolution, free to view and download. Publication: 1817-1820.
![Gloriosa [Gloriosa superba] (1817)](/upload/nat/drawings-of-plants-collected-at-cape-town/004-thumb.webp)
![Hibiscus [Hibiscus calyphyllus] (1817)](/upload/nat/drawings-of-plants-collected-at-cape-town/006-thumb.webp)
![Gardenia Nov. Sp. [Hyperacanthus amoenus] (1817)](/upload/nat/drawings-of-plants-collected-at-cape-town/002-thumb.webp)
![Gardenia Nova Sp. [Burchellia bubalina] (1817)](/upload/nat/drawings-of-plants-collected-at-cape-town/003-thumb.webp)
![Icosandria monog. [Ochna arborea] (1817)](/upload/nat/drawings-of-plants-collected-at-cape-town/007-thumb.webp)
![Loranthus N. Sp. [Moquiniella rubra] (1817)](/upload/nat/drawings-of-plants-collected-at-cape-town/009-thumb.webp)