Lux mundi. Caesalpinia pulcherrima, Yellow Peacock Flower, and an Asian Honeybee, Apis cerana, Kerandangan, Lombok, Indonesia
Lux mundi, Light of the World, is one of the names given this beautiful plant by Georg Eberhard Rumphius (1627-1702). Rumphius - who was to become blind and yet persevered as a botanist - was employed by the Dutch East Indies Trading Company (VOC) on the Indonesian isle of Ambon, Maluku. He is famous for his naturalist descriptions, especially for his series of great plant books (kept a company trading secret by the VOC until 1743!).
In most of the literature our pretty plant is described as a native of the West Indies, hence one of its names: The Pride of Barbados (see also my posting: www.flickr.com/photos/87453322@N00/2731465723/in/photolis...). But the fine new edition of Francis Ng's, Tropical Horticulture & Gardening stimulated me to delve a bit deeper. Ng mentions the debate over Caesalpinia origins, whether in the West or in the East. To get things a bit clearer in my mind I went to Curtis's Botanical Magazine, vol 25 (1806-7) and discovered there that it had already been brought to Holland in the 1670s presumably by VOC ships. Of the West-Indian origins, the Magazine writes: 'Although long since widely diffused through the West Indies and frequently found in spontaneous growth, it is doubtful whether it be originally indigenous there.' So I went to Rumphius's massive Herbarium Amboinense, vol. 4, p.55 and a clear drawing Tab.XX. Rumphius gives a long description of the plant and its provenance (China, and brought to Ambon by a Chinese skipper in the 1650s).
One of the names Rumphius gives it is Crista pavonis, and he mentions a whole range of other names in local languages. He devotes a paragraph also to this yellow form and says it is less frequently seen than the 'peacock' flower; he thinks it to be the female form of the flower.
It's rather curious that Carolus Linnaeus does not refer explicitly to Rumphius. I think it's due to the Great Swede that the West-Indian provenance is generally accepted. How did this happen? Well, Rumphius work was suppressed, kept secret until the middle of the eighteenth century just when Linnaeus was writing. He apparently just missed it... or at least Rumphius's articulate and learned exposition about this flower.
Here in Kerandangan 'she' is being visited by an Asian Honeybee, Apis cerana.
And I myself was reminded of a famous scholar of Groningen, Wessel Gansfort (1419-1489), who in 1614 at the founding of the university there was designated as 'Altera Lux Mundi' (after Christ, of course), which brings us back to the name Crista pavonis.
Lux mundi. Caesalpinia pulcherrima, Yellow Peacock Flower, and an Asian Honeybee, Apis cerana, Kerandangan, Lombok, Indonesia
Lux mundi, Light of the World, is one of the names given this beautiful plant by Georg Eberhard Rumphius (1627-1702). Rumphius - who was to become blind and yet persevered as a botanist - was employed by the Dutch East Indies Trading Company (VOC) on the Indonesian isle of Ambon, Maluku. He is famous for his naturalist descriptions, especially for his series of great plant books (kept a company trading secret by the VOC until 1743!).
In most of the literature our pretty plant is described as a native of the West Indies, hence one of its names: The Pride of Barbados (see also my posting: www.flickr.com/photos/87453322@N00/2731465723/in/photolis...). But the fine new edition of Francis Ng's, Tropical Horticulture & Gardening stimulated me to delve a bit deeper. Ng mentions the debate over Caesalpinia origins, whether in the West or in the East. To get things a bit clearer in my mind I went to Curtis's Botanical Magazine, vol 25 (1806-7) and discovered there that it had already been brought to Holland in the 1670s presumably by VOC ships. Of the West-Indian origins, the Magazine writes: 'Although long since widely diffused through the West Indies and frequently found in spontaneous growth, it is doubtful whether it be originally indigenous there.' So I went to Rumphius's massive Herbarium Amboinense, vol. 4, p.55 and a clear drawing Tab.XX. Rumphius gives a long description of the plant and its provenance (China, and brought to Ambon by a Chinese skipper in the 1650s).
One of the names Rumphius gives it is Crista pavonis, and he mentions a whole range of other names in local languages. He devotes a paragraph also to this yellow form and says it is less frequently seen than the 'peacock' flower; he thinks it to be the female form of the flower.
It's rather curious that Carolus Linnaeus does not refer explicitly to Rumphius. I think it's due to the Great Swede that the West-Indian provenance is generally accepted. How did this happen? Well, Rumphius work was suppressed, kept secret until the middle of the eighteenth century just when Linnaeus was writing. He apparently just missed it... or at least Rumphius's articulate and learned exposition about this flower.
Here in Kerandangan 'she' is being visited by an Asian Honeybee, Apis cerana.
And I myself was reminded of a famous scholar of Groningen, Wessel Gansfort (1419-1489), who in 1614 at the founding of the university there was designated as 'Altera Lux Mundi' (after Christ, of course), which brings us back to the name Crista pavonis.