Poster spreads

The digitizing of many hundreds of photographs and illustrations to be included in The Cape Orchids has been superbly completed by Thomas Mihal of Positive Imaging (positiveimage@telkomsa.net), Cape Town. These poster spreads were produced by Thomas for promotional purposes and contain an assortment of images from the book. See Thomas' website (www.thomasmihal.com) for other examples of his work.

The Cape Orchids poster

The Cape Floristic Region spread of images shows: The rugged Cape mountains provide a diverse range of habitats for orchids. Sublime winter’s view towards Simonsberg and Table Mountain from the Franschhoek mountains, western Cape Floristic Region (May 1995). The Hottentotsholland Mountains near Somerset Sneeukop, western Cape Floristic Region (January 6, 2000). Snow blanketing Cape fynbos vegetation on the Groot-Winterhoek Peak, western Cape Floristic Region (August 1996). The renewal of life after fire is a quintessential part of the ecology in the Cape Floristic Region.

The Bolus spread of images shows: Table Mountain and Cape Town (1772). Oil on canvas by William Hodges (1744–1797), the official artist on Captain James Cook’s second voyage (1772-1775; see J. Cook, A Voyage towards the South Pole and around the World, vol. 2, 1777). Iziko William Fehr Collection; accession no. CD 21. Francis Masson, the energetic gardener on the staff of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London, was, in 1772, the first official plant collector to be sent abroad from England. During his travels at the Cape, Masson met an anonymous Dutch soldier, described as an “artist of great skill as a designer of the objects of natural history”. Illustrations by this soldier-artist accompany a series of articles by John Bellenden Ker that were published between 1818 and 1820 in the Quarterly Journal of Science and the Arts. These are among the first scientifically accurate published illustrations of Cape orchids. The Heerenlogenment rock-shelter near Graafwater, western Cape. Those travelling northwards along the old main route from the Cape Colony, light-heartedly bestowed the name “Heerenlogenment” (Gentleman’s Lodging) upon this wild, but hospitable, resting place with its unfailing spring. Explorers and naturalists, including Carl Thunberg, Francis Masson and William Paterson, camped on the level area below the cave and among many others, inscriptions under the rock overhang of Karl Zeyher and François le Vaillant remain clearly visible and in some places overlay ochre applications of the ancient indigenous Khoe-San peoples. The gnarled wild-fig (Ficus salicifolia var. cordata), growing from an overhead rock-crevice is probably the same hoary old tree described by le Vaillant during his stop there in 1783 (see François le Vaillant–Traveller in South Africa 1: 71-73. 1973, Library of Parliament, Cape Town). Portraits of some celebrated botanists and naturalists accompanying separate framed biographies throughout the species accounts; William John Burchell (1781-1863), William Henry Harvey (1811-1866), Peter Macowan (1830-1909), Carl Peter Thunberg (1743-1828) and Francis Masson (1741-1805).

Dr Harry Bolus, London, circa 1909. Bolus’ orchid volumes and ephemera: The Orchids of the Cape Peninsula (1888 - 1st ed., Bolus’s personal working copy; 1918 - 2nd ed.), Orchids of South Africa  Icones Orchidearum Austro-Africanarum Extra-tropicarum, vols. 1 pt. 1 (1893); 1 pt. 2 (1896), vol. 2 (1911) and vol. 3 (1913). Mr Shipton’s Study, Oxted, Surrey (completed about May 27, 1911); this pastel drawing by Arthur Hughes (1832-1915), an eminent English painter and popular book illustrator associated with the Pre-Raphaelite movement, depicts the study where Harry Bolus died on 25 May 1911, after checking the final proofs of his book, Icones Orchidearum Austro-Africanum, vol. II. A letter and drawing from a local teacher, Celestine du Plessis, to Dr Harry Bolus (February 20, 1911), describes a long-proboscid horsefly (Philoliche gulosa) with an adherent pollinium of Disa harveiana subsp. longicalcarata, found near Porterville, western Cape Floristic Region. Harry Bolus (date unknown) at Sherwood, the Bolus residence at Claremont near Cape Town. C. Louis Leipoldt, an Afrikaans literary figure, physician and naturalist who corresponded extensively with Harry Bolus. From the age of 16, when he began writing to the 63 year old stockbroker and botanist, a lively exchange of letters and plant specimens took place. It only came to an end with the older man’s death in 1911. This correspondence can be followed in a delightful collection entitled Dear Dr Bolus: Letters from Clanwilliam, London. New York & Europe, written mainly during his medical education by C. Louis Leipoldt to Harry Bolus in Cape Town from 1897 to 1911. Edited by E. M. Sandler, 1979. Published for the University of Cape Town by A. A. Balkema, Cape Town. Disperis paludosa placed upon Harry Bolus’s illustration of this species in The Orchids of the Cape Peninsula.

Disa spread 1: Disa richardiana, D. glandulosa, D. telipogonis, D. rosea, D. schizodiodes, D. virginalis, D. maculata, D. pillansii.

Disa spread 2: Disa spathulata subsp. tripartita, Disa spathulata subsp. spathulata, D. lugens var. lugens, D. lugens var. nigrescens, D. procera, D. schlechteriana, D. barbata.

Coryciinae and Disperis spread 1: Evotella rubiginosa, Disperis cucullata, Certandra globosa, Disperis paludosa, Corycium microglossum.

Coryciinae and Disperis spread 2: Corycium bifidum (background), Disperis capensis var. capensis (two forms), Ceratandra venosa, C. grandiflora, Pterygodium volucris.