Barrie Edward Juniper

Daniel M. Joel

Richard J. Robins

Plants, as is now becoming widely recognised, exploit animals in almost as many ways as animals use plants; only rarely, however, do they eat animals in the sense of catching, holding, and devouring prey. The manner, however, in which they function as carnivores grants insights into plant form, function, and evolution not otherwise readily available. The diversity of morphological, biochemical, and commensal features generates both the lay and the scientific interest in this diverse group. The carnivorous plants exhibit features which are common to many other non-carnivorous plants. However the extent to which these features have developed and the combination of different features in small organs is unique and therefore, can be exploited by using these plants as models for scientific research.

The Carnivorous Plants

Hanneke Grootenboer

In the early seventeenth century there was eager interest, among the leisured classes, in fruits from the Mediterranean and beyond, not least for the kitchen gardens and orchards of England's grand houses. The volume of charming, vibrant, almost primitif watercolour paintings of orchard fruits on the branch, popularly known as 'Tradescants' Orchard', is a precious and fragile relic of this era of broadening horticultural horizons.This manuscript, traditionally associated with the renowned plantsmen, the John Tradescants, was among the eclectic collections of Elias Ashmole (1617-1692), which came to form the basis of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. Then, in 1860 it was transferred to the Bodleian Library. It has been quietly recognized as a mysterious treasure, yet the paintings raise many unanswered questions. Who painted them, and for whom? What was their purpose? Only one apple is represented - were there once others, now missing? Whose handwriting appears in the manuscript? Why did the artist paint wildlife such as birds, frogs and butterflies on many of the folios?All sixty-six of the original illustrations are reproduced here in facsimile for the first time, following a general introduction which maps out the mystery of why and how these beguiling watercolours came to be commissioned and made.

Barrie Edward Juniper

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