27th Annual-Hazlewood - American Society of Botanical Artists

Home27th Annual-Hazlewood

Story behind the art of Marianne Hazlewood

27th Annual International

American Society of Botanical Artists and the Society of Illustrators

Arisaema costatum

I am officially an Arisaema geek… or maybe nerd! Here is a short story of obsession or, if you’re kind, a love story…

I came across these strange and interesting plants when I was looking for a topic for my diploma in botanical illustration at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. I’d seen them before at our local garden show, and lusted after them, but now I had a legitimate excuse to go nuts. They were available as tubers. I could buy and grow them myself and thus have them readily to hand, and I could buy a range of them fulfilling the requirements to paint five different plants on a theme. Decision made.

These strange and interesting plants have been my focus of attention ever since.

I planted multiple specimens of each of my selected Arisaema: A. consanguineum, A. costatum, A. galeiforme Serizawa, A. griffithii, A. intermedium, and A. ringens.

Each specimen introduced me to new aspects of these plants. I marvelled over their tubers, planted them like treasures, and watched the shoots emerge. Photographing them through their prime to their soggy demise (they wilt, in the autumn, in a very gooey way), I watched them and, when I had true, typical specimens, untampered with by frost or slugs, I got to work. I planted them into pots so that my subjects could come indoors, and I could color match and paint them.

Initially, I didn’t know on what aspect to focus. The inflorescences are so fantastic, the foliage follows some set types, with fascinating idiosyncrasies, and when I first started working with these plants, I hadn’t yet seen the amazing fruits. I knew I needed to document my plants in the first growing season and the next. I settled on depicting two seasons of growth, incorporating inflorescence, foliage, and then fruits. I found the pieces worked together as a set of six, the compositions playing off each other.

I started with rough sketches and then measured drawings. Then using a drybrush technique, I refined, color matched, and worked on each aspect over the seasons.

I particularly love the graceful shape A. costatum has in its inflorescence with its long entwining spadix. It is the most graceful of Arisaema flowers and the carmine and white striped spathe is candy-cane delicious. The leaflets are edged with carmine, which diffuses up the veins, segmenting the fresh green elephantine trifold leaf. In autumn the vibrant orange fruits are held on a curved peduncle that morphs from deep chocolate to a banana yellow. This truly is a rainbow of Arisaema.

I have planted so many of these over the last few years that I now anticipate July (when they emerge here in Scotland) with a silent recitation excitedly whispering through my mind… “The costatum are coming…”

Additional information about A. costatum:

Common names are ribbed cobra lily (Pradhan, 1990) and purple or sikkim jack in the pulpit, (Mehta and Bole, 1991).

A. costatum has huge leaves which make it a popular garden plant. It usually flourishes in European and some North American climates. The underside of the leaf is quite distinctive, with prominent parallel veins. The Latin species name comes from the ribbed inner surface of the spathe tube (the tubular bract that encloses the flower spike). Costa means rib and costatus is ribbed.

The plant is deciduous and grows to 60 cm (23.5 in) tall and wide. Its native distribution extends through central and eastern Nepal, western China, and southern Xizang (Tibet) in mixed forests, among shrubbery, and on open slopes, at a height of 1900–3180 m (6233-10,433 ft). The flowering period is from June to July, with fruit ripening November to December.

References

Gusman, Guy and Liliane. The Genus Arisaema, A Monograph for Botanist and Nature Lovers, A. R. G. Gantner Verlag K. G., 2006.

Mehta, Ashvin and Bole, P.V. 100 Himalayan Flowers, The Vendome Press, 1991.

Pradhan, Udai C. Himalayan Cobra-lilies (Arisaema): Their Botany and Culture, Primulaceae Books, 1990.

Arisaema costatum

Watercolor on paper

17-3/4 x 12-5/8 inches

Arisaema consanguineum

One day, on a meander, I came upon the most startling fruits hanging amongst the foliage in the woodland borders at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. I hoped they were Arisaema, as I was completing my diploma in botanical illustration and had recently decided to work on Arisaema as the theme for my second-year project.

A. consanguineum has a show-stopping fruit. As it ripens, the peduncle on which it sits hooks over to create a nodding body of fruit, which slowly matures through green to a bright red.

I had to add this amazing plant to my Arisaema short-list! And these woodland garden specimens gave me quite an insight into the mature stages that I might expect with my own plants, which was very exciting.

With my tutor's help, I was able to procure specimens. There were logistics involved! I had to cut the specimens, which were about three feet tall, and take them home with me on the bus! I enlisted the help of my local florist, who was able to give me a second-hand flower delivery box into which I packed my two specimens with the greatest care. Once home, they lived in vases in the fridge. I took all the shelves out and piled our food at the base of the fridge around the edges in delicate toppling towers. And so it was until I had finished documenting the structure of the pseudostem, fruits, and foliage.

Starting with rough sketches and then measured drawings, I refined, color-matched, and worked on each aspect with a drybrush technique.

I think this was my first experience with the beautiful markings that Arisaema plants can have on their cataphylls (bract-like modified leaves, which protect newly emerging leaves). The patina ignited a passion for pattern and structure that is very much with me today and appears in a lot of my pen and ink work.

As I had begun to work with this plant in its mature stage, I had to wait to see what the inflorescence would be like the next spring. I had the fantastic resources of the RBGE library at hand, but I didn’t know if these plants would have carmine or green spathes. The inflorescence sits beneath a radiate spray of leaflets, that appear like a tropical parasol, often with the tips tapering to a point and prolonged into red-brown threads which move like inverted grasses in the breeze.

Given different conditions A. consanguineum can vary greatly in height. I wanted to show the height of the plants in the botanic garden. However, I had elected to restrict the size of my paintings to a uniform height, one that suited most of my specimens. I chose to have the leaflets of this larger plant in its fruiting form just showing at the top of the piece, while the younger flowering plant sits centrally. I really love that the whole plant is too tall to be contained within the painting.

Additional information about A. consanguineum:

The common name is consanguineous cobra lily, (Pradhan, 1990). Consanguinity in animals means a blood relationship. In plants it could refer to inbreeding occurring naturally in the form of self-pollination.

A. consanguineum is the most widespread species of Arisaema throughout Asia. Guy and Liliane Gusman (2006) note that the wide distribution has resulted in different growing conditions and multiple variations of the species, from a diminutive 15 cm (6 in) high on the peak of Wanfo Ding (near Shaping, Sichuan, China) at 3099 m (10,167 ft) to a tall form (possibly up to 2 m or 6.5 ft) in the same region but at a lower altitude of 750 m (2460 ft). Growing conditions include rocky crags, meadows, along roadsides in stony clay, along footpaths, at forest edges, in shrubbery, along rivers, and beneath Torreyra grandis and hazel trees in amongst iris and ferns. A. consanguineum can be variegated or unvariegated, making the species an attractive choice as a foliage plant.

It is deciduous, with a native distribution through northern India, Nepal, Bhutan, China, northern Thailand, northern Myanmar, Vietnam, and possibly Laos. The flowering period is from May to July with fruit ripening from September to November.