Across Africa. Brillantaisia nyanzarum or owariensis, African Acanthus, Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Yes, I did have an idea of Lake Victoria in Africa being locally called Nyanza. So that's what our African Acanthus was named for by the Brits around 1900 who explored and subjugated East Africa.
But the plant had already been found and described earlier in the west by the adventurous French botanist and naturalist Ambroise Marie François Joseph Palisot de Beauvois (1752-1820). In 1818 in the second volume of his interesting Flore d'Oware, he named it for his traveling buddy, one M. Brillant-Marion (on whom I could find nothing; 'M' may stand for a first name or else just for 'Monsieur', or his name may be 'Marion Brillant'). Palisot is proud to have been the first botanist to have traversed Oware, as he calls it.
But the 'owariensis' had me stumped.
Palisot, though, in his description adds that he found our flower near Agathon in what is today Nigeria. I searched around a bit more and found that Agathon goes by a variety of similar names. The one on a map of ca. 1700 (inset) is Agotton. That, too, is what Willem Bosman calls it in his Nauwkeurige beschryving of 1704. The town lies on a hill on an island in the Benin River. He adds some remarks about the fruitfulness of the area and how it's being rebuilt after recent war damage. And it turns out 'Oware' is also 'Ouwerre', today the petroleum city of Warri.
The history of that place belies the beauty of the Acanthus. It turns out this area was part of the Dutch Slaving Coast from where many non-human products were also procured. Agotton enriched the Dutch with fine cloth and with huge shipments of ivory. Now oil is what counts.
Exploitation east and west... then and now.
Across Africa. Brillantaisia nyanzarum or owariensis, African Acanthus, Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Yes, I did have an idea of Lake Victoria in Africa being locally called Nyanza. So that's what our African Acanthus was named for by the Brits around 1900 who explored and subjugated East Africa.
But the plant had already been found and described earlier in the west by the adventurous French botanist and naturalist Ambroise Marie François Joseph Palisot de Beauvois (1752-1820). In 1818 in the second volume of his interesting Flore d'Oware, he named it for his traveling buddy, one M. Brillant-Marion (on whom I could find nothing; 'M' may stand for a first name or else just for 'Monsieur', or his name may be 'Marion Brillant'). Palisot is proud to have been the first botanist to have traversed Oware, as he calls it.
But the 'owariensis' had me stumped.
Palisot, though, in his description adds that he found our flower near Agathon in what is today Nigeria. I searched around a bit more and found that Agathon goes by a variety of similar names. The one on a map of ca. 1700 (inset) is Agotton. That, too, is what Willem Bosman calls it in his Nauwkeurige beschryving of 1704. The town lies on a hill on an island in the Benin River. He adds some remarks about the fruitfulness of the area and how it's being rebuilt after recent war damage. And it turns out 'Oware' is also 'Ouwerre', today the petroleum city of Warri.
The history of that place belies the beauty of the Acanthus. It turns out this area was part of the Dutch Slaving Coast from where many non-human products were also procured. Agotton enriched the Dutch with fine cloth and with huge shipments of ivory. Now oil is what counts.
Exploitation east and west... then and now.