Green with Envy. Paspalum conjugatum, Yellow Grass, Rumput Kerbau, KLCC Park, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Daniel Rolander (1725-1793), a rather gruff and short-fused man, was one of Great Linnaeus's many students. A general biologist, he specialised in botany and entomology. In 1755 he travelled to Surinam in South America and amassed a large collection of specimens. Upon his return to Europe, Rolander fell out with his envious teacher Linnaeus. The latter - green with envy for that Srinan Collection - even orchestrated a break-in to steal some of Rolander's specimens. Rolander had no way to counter Linnaeus's jealous slanders against him; he fell more and more into his rough and non-polished ways; the scientific community increasingly ignored him; he died in poverty.
Part of his collection came into the hands of another of Linnaeus's students who was himself the founder of an Herbarium (Hortus Botanicus Bergianus) still today in existence: Pehr Jonas Bergius (1730-1790). Rolander had enriched, writes Bergius in 1772, his own collection with many of the plants he'd collected in South America. One of those plants which Bergius describes 'for the public' is this pretty grass.
Paspalum conjugatum goes by many common names; in Malaysia it's known as Rumput kerbau, Buffalo Grass. It's become naturalised here. Though it's not the kind of grass the horticulturalists of the KLCC Park like to see in their lawns, here and there it pops up in the 'rougher' areas which don't often see grass cutters.
A rather tall, thin plant, it's quite easy to understand how difficult it is to draw and engrave for a page in an average-sized book if you want to show some of the character of the 'flower heads'. Bergius in his 1772 description comes up with a good solution. The engraving there shows the entire plant with the stalk bent downward in the middle. That gave the artist the possibility to draw the roots as well as the 'head' in some detail. Great solution.
The green in the background is that of the nicely manicured lawn right next to the KLCC Park mosque.
Green with Envy. Paspalum conjugatum, Yellow Grass, Rumput Kerbau, KLCC Park, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Daniel Rolander (1725-1793), a rather gruff and short-fused man, was one of Great Linnaeus's many students. A general biologist, he specialised in botany and entomology. In 1755 he travelled to Surinam in South America and amassed a large collection of specimens. Upon his return to Europe, Rolander fell out with his envious teacher Linnaeus. The latter - green with envy for that Srinan Collection - even orchestrated a break-in to steal some of Rolander's specimens. Rolander had no way to counter Linnaeus's jealous slanders against him; he fell more and more into his rough and non-polished ways; the scientific community increasingly ignored him; he died in poverty.
Part of his collection came into the hands of another of Linnaeus's students who was himself the founder of an Herbarium (Hortus Botanicus Bergianus) still today in existence: Pehr Jonas Bergius (1730-1790). Rolander had enriched, writes Bergius in 1772, his own collection with many of the plants he'd collected in South America. One of those plants which Bergius describes 'for the public' is this pretty grass.
Paspalum conjugatum goes by many common names; in Malaysia it's known as Rumput kerbau, Buffalo Grass. It's become naturalised here. Though it's not the kind of grass the horticulturalists of the KLCC Park like to see in their lawns, here and there it pops up in the 'rougher' areas which don't often see grass cutters.
A rather tall, thin plant, it's quite easy to understand how difficult it is to draw and engrave for a page in an average-sized book if you want to show some of the character of the 'flower heads'. Bergius in his 1772 description comes up with a good solution. The engraving there shows the entire plant with the stalk bent downward in the middle. That gave the artist the possibility to draw the roots as well as the 'head' in some detail. Great solution.
The green in the background is that of the nicely manicured lawn right next to the KLCC Park mosque.