'Most Elegant Thistle'. Protea neriifolia, Baardsuikerbos, Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
On April 2, 1595 the First Dutch Expedition to Indonesia set out from Texel funded by the the Compagnie van Verre (Company for Faraway), a forerunner of the Dutch East Indies Trading Company (VOC). The small fleet of four ships - the Amsterdam, Hollandia, Mauritius and Duyfken - sailed by way of the Canary islands, Cape Verde Islands and Brazil, arriving at the Cape of Good Hope in early August. Then up north to the east coast of Madagascar where storms delayed their departure to the Indonesian islands until February 1596. After many adventures and especially misfortunes - e.g. mutiny and a devastating fire - the much diminished expedition via St. Helena made it back to Holland in the late Summer of 1597. The profits in spices were very meagre... and the loss in lives great.
But the the benefit to the sciences was large. With regard to botany a careful examination of the collected specimens was made especially by Carolus Clusius (1526-1609), and he published his findings in his Ten Books on Exotics (1605). It's here that the first full European description of our Protea is found. But Clusius mistakenly writes that this 'most elegant Thistle' was found at the Baya d'Anton-Gil on the northeast coast of Madagascar; that would have been in January 1596, when the fleet had finally been able to make landfall there. But the provenance of the specimens must have gotten mixed up because Our Protea is endemic to South Africa; such a mixup is hardly surprising given the adventurous voyage.
Clusius in his marvellous book also provides a detailed sketch of a dried flower of Our Protea. That flower is probably the very first botanical specimen from South Africa to have arrived in Europe.
In the title above I've used the Afrikaans: Bearded Sugar Bush because it sounds more interesting and descriptive of the flower than Oleanderleaf Protea.
'Most Elegant Thistle'. Protea neriifolia, Baardsuikerbos, Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
On April 2, 1595 the First Dutch Expedition to Indonesia set out from Texel funded by the the Compagnie van Verre (Company for Faraway), a forerunner of the Dutch East Indies Trading Company (VOC). The small fleet of four ships - the Amsterdam, Hollandia, Mauritius and Duyfken - sailed by way of the Canary islands, Cape Verde Islands and Brazil, arriving at the Cape of Good Hope in early August. Then up north to the east coast of Madagascar where storms delayed their departure to the Indonesian islands until February 1596. After many adventures and especially misfortunes - e.g. mutiny and a devastating fire - the much diminished expedition via St. Helena made it back to Holland in the late Summer of 1597. The profits in spices were very meagre... and the loss in lives great.
But the the benefit to the sciences was large. With regard to botany a careful examination of the collected specimens was made especially by Carolus Clusius (1526-1609), and he published his findings in his Ten Books on Exotics (1605). It's here that the first full European description of our Protea is found. But Clusius mistakenly writes that this 'most elegant Thistle' was found at the Baya d'Anton-Gil on the northeast coast of Madagascar; that would have been in January 1596, when the fleet had finally been able to make landfall there. But the provenance of the specimens must have gotten mixed up because Our Protea is endemic to South Africa; such a mixup is hardly surprising given the adventurous voyage.
Clusius in his marvellous book also provides a detailed sketch of a dried flower of Our Protea. That flower is probably the very first botanical specimen from South Africa to have arrived in Europe.
In the title above I've used the Afrikaans: Bearded Sugar Bush because it sounds more interesting and descriptive of the flower than Oleanderleaf Protea.