Marianne North (1860) was an amateur gardener and painter from Europe, who traveled over Jamaica, Peru, Japan, India, Australia, the US, New Zealand, and more. She was so passionate about flowers, she actually went to every continent except for the Antarctic in pursuit of new specimens to paint.
Logically, but worth mentioning, she accomplished all her trips without modern means of transportation or gadgets to make tasks easier. And during all her feats she wore the customary dress of her day: floor-long gowns.
During her times, photography hadn’t been perfectioned yet, and so her detailed paintings were key for other botanists to see for the first time some of the world’s most unusual plants, as the African Torch Lily (Kniphofia uvaria), and the Giant Pitcher plant of Borneo (Nepenthes attenboroughii). She consequently got to name several species that hadn’t been discovered yet or had never been catalogued in the wild, making priceless contributions for the study of flora. For this reason, the plant genus Northia was named in her honour, as well as a number of plant species which include Areca northiana, Crinum northianum, Kniphofia northiae, and Nepenthes northiana.
The scientific accuracy with which she documented plant life in all parts of the world still makes her work highly valuable for scientists today from all over the globe.
For those of you who are interested in botany and may go or be in England, visiting the Kew Gardens might be a tempting opportunity. It contains the North Gallery, which is a permanent solo exhibition of North’s paintings.
Applied Plant Ecology Winter 2020 