A different kind of post this week invites you to learn something about the little known botanic artist Marianne North and her remarkable life painting portraits of trees and other plants. Frank Waugh traveled to London’s Kew Gardens a few times in his life after the Marianne North Gallery had opened. It is possible that he visited it, but there is no record of what his visits entailed. Learning about her life, travels, and paintings would have been of interest to Waugh and his family.

https://www.kew.org/read-and-watch/marianne-north-botanical-artist

https://www.kew.org/read-and-watch/marianne-north-borneo-coffee

Marianne North traveled the world over to paint botanic species in remote areas. One example, painting 624, preserved among her more than 800 in the Marianne North Gallery in Kew Gardens,  is entitled Curious Plants from the Forest of Matang, Sarawak, Borneo. The first herbarium specimen of this plant was not collected until 1973, nearly 100 years later.The species is now named Chassalia northiana T.Y. Yu in Marianne’s honor, the fifth plant species to bear her name.