Ceropegia Meyeri (1921)
Ceropegia Meyeri (1921)
Ceropegia Meyeri (1921)
Ten ways of seeing
- measured cast red
- upright 1.48 : 1
First Look
竖划三寸，当千仞之高；横墨数尺，体百里之迥。
—— 南朝宋·宗炳《画山水序》
A vertical stroke of three inches stands for a cliff of a thousand fathoms; a few feet of ink holds a hundred li.
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. The pose leans right: the upper half carries 13 points further right than the lower — a living thing, not a diagram.
Name and Thing
The binomial is Ceropegia meyeri: 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
Measured on this plate: flower colour covers 6.1% of the sheet, foliage 9.6%, the cast red 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 tall. No details are appended: a plate for looking, not for keying out. The plant covers only 18% of the sheet, centred below centre; the emptiness is where the eye rests.
Line and Colour
After 1900 photography and colour reproduction ran alongside watercolour: accuracy rose, the cut of the burin disappeared. 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: this is a photomechanical record — match the colours directly, do not imitate the printing grain.
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. Flower language was added later; the flower knows nothing of it, and that innocence is part of its power.
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 1921 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
“The Flowering plants of South Africa” carries only Illtyd Buller Pole-Evans's name. From drawing to plate the sheet passed through several hands — the engraver aimed at accuracy, the colourist at speed, and between them lies each plate's unevenness.
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 1921 gave a whole day to a single flower.
About this plate
Ceropegia Meyeri (1921) is plate 29, from The Flowering plants of South Africa, drawn by Illtyd Buller Pole-Evans. This public-domain plate is reproduced at high resolution, free to view and download. Publication: Kent, L. Reeve & Co., 1921.
