Eriocaulon Philippo-Coburgi (1888)
Ten ways of seeing
- upright 1.36 : 1
First Look
搜尽奇峰打草稿。
—— 清·石涛《苦瓜和尚画语录》
Exhaust the strange peaks, and then make the sketch.
The sheet is vertical: the eye climbs and settles in the upper half. Let the plant stand before you look for detail. 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
The binomial is Eriocaulon philippo-coburgi: the first word is the genus it belongs among, the second the epithet that sets it apart. Two words carry a whole provenance. No established Chinese name exists, so it is cited by its binomial alone.
Form and Colour
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. Read the outline, then the colour layers, then the brush.
Composition
Tall and narrow, the plant rising in one movement with generous margins — the upright format of most floras. No details are appended: a plate for looking, not for keying out. Old plates set the plant slightly off centre, with unequal margins — that small imbalance is what keeps it alive.
Line and Colour
In the later nineteenth century chromolithography took over: colour printed rather than painted, line demoted. Craft leaves franker evidence than inscriptions. If you mean to copy it: block in the broad shapes and colours first, detail last; lithographic softness comes from thin washes — two or three pale layers will get you close.
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. Meanings change their tune: the same flower can say opposite things within a century.
Season and Place
Plates usually record flowering, the fortnight when a plant is most identifiable. 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 1888 on the plate is that of publication, not of flowering — the gathering came a year or two earlier. Read the locality and the flowering season both with a discount: one is hearsay, the other a ten-day peak.
The Book and the Hand
“Itinera principum S. Coburgi Vol.2” carries only Heinrich Wawra's name. The image is public domain; the hand-colouring is still one person's hand.
What to Take Away
Next time you stand before a flowering plant, give it three minutes: leaf arrangement, direction of the flower, the darkest patch. A flora exists to be consulted; look long enough and you forget to consult — someone in 1888 gave a whole day to a single flower.
