This Week’s Botanical Illustration and The Irish Connection
Hubei lily, Lilium henryi
© Aislinn Adams
A botanical illustration with an Irish connection
The botanical illustrations I’ve created for the Washington Post’s “Digging In” column usually have absolutely no connection to Ireland. Gardening in the Washington D.C. area can be a very different experience to gardening in Ireland. The D.C. weather is full of extremes with the temperature sometimes rising or falling as much as 20 degrees Fahrenheit in one day. Ireland’s weather is much milder, knowing no such extremes. Lots of exotic, bright, colorful shrubs and vines that thrive in the hot, moist conditions of a D.C. summer wouldn’t survive a good Irish summer, never mind a bad one that can be “summer” in name only.
Lilium henryi – Henry’s lily
Then one week Adrian Higgins, the gardening editor at the Washington Post, asked me to create a botanical illustration of Lilium henryi. I sat up straight and smiled – at last a plant with an Irish connection. Lilium henryi or Henry’s lily, a tall, orange, turkscap lily, is not native to Ireland but it most definitely has a strong connection to there. Augustine Henry, one of Ireland’s most famous plant collectors from the golden age of plant collecting in the late 1800’s, first described this beautiful plant.
Augustine Henry
Augustine Henry (1857-1930) grew up in Co. Tyrone, Ireland. He trained as a medical doctor but is best known for his plant collecting. After qualifying as a doctor he went to China to work for the Imperial Chinese Custom Service and in 1882 they sent him to the remote posting of Yichang in Hubei province to investigate plants used in Chinese medicine. (One of Lilium henryi’s common names is Hubei lily.) During his time in China he sent back thousands of plant specimens to Kew Gardens, England, and to Ireland. By 1896 25 new genera and 500 new species had been described from his specimens.
I felt proud that week creating a botanical illustration for a plant first described by one of Ireland’s great plant collectors and bearing his name in its species epithet.
To see my greeting card of Lilium henryi click here.
Aislinn Adams
