Story behind the art of Gillian Rice

27th Annual International

American Society of Botanical Artists and the Society of Illustrators

Mexican Hat

Ratibida columnifera

I first met my subject, Mexican hat, at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix. What an intriguing shape – a mini-sombrero – bobbing in the gentle breeze. I fell in love. I learned that Mexican hat (Ratibida columnifera) is an Arizona native.

I determined to sow seeds of this distinctive species in my own garden, which is an unruly unplanned hodge-podge of vegetable patch, fruit trees, wildflowers, and xeriscape (cacti and desert shrubs). I like the look of an untidy garden that’s welcoming to wildlife. Clumps of Mexican hat are the perfect inhabitants! And they return year after year.

The species provides nectar and seeds. Doves, quail, Abert’s towhees and curve-billed thrashers forage on the ground below the flowers. The Abert’s towhee is a secretive, brown bird related to ground-sparrows, which inhabits riparian areas and suitable suburban habitat – like my messy, shrubby garden - in the Sonoran Desert. The curve-billed thrasher is another brown, but larger, yellow-eyed resident of southwestern arid lands and is my favorite songster. As well as its delightful springtime warble, it has a distinctive double-whistle call. With its long decurved bill, it digs in the ground (or in my plant pots or vegetable patch) looking for insects or seeds.  

The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation identifies Ratibida columnifera as a larval host for butterflies and moths, a species that supports native bees, and a plant that attracts beneficial insects, of which I’ve spotted many. It’s a deer resistant plant (not a worry for me, living in the middle of the Phoenix metropolis). It also attracts bumble bees, although I rarely have bumble bees in my garden when Mexican hat blooms (spring through fall) because the weather is far too warm.

I didn’t know before researching it as my art subject that Mexican hat is just one of many common names. Others are upright prairie coneflower, longhead prairie coneflower, prairie coneflower, red-spike Mexican hat, and thimbleflower. The plant is a Great Plains species in the US, Canada, and northern Mexico. The word “columnifera” in the species name means “bearing columns,” referring to the tall cylindrical flower heads.

Ratibida columnifera is a perennial species in the genus Ratibida in the family Asteraceae. The previous name for this family, Compositae, refers to the composite nature of the flowers. A composite flower seems to be a single floral entity but is a composite of ray florets and disk florets. The sterile ray florets surround the “head” of the “flower” – each ray is an individual flower with a single large petal. These attract pollinators, which forage on the tiny tightly-packed disk florets in the central area (in the case of R. columnifera on the “column”), that will mature into seeds. 

I grow plants with yellow rays and with maroon rays. Some plants have bicolored rays (maroon/yellow). Botanists treat the plants with predominantly maroon rays as forma pulcherrima, which is more common in the southwestern range of the species where I live. My subject has maroon rays tinged with yellow.

The composite flowering heads are small with their columns varying from 1-5 cm tall (a little less than two inches at most) and after some trial sketching, I decided to portray only an enlarged flower head so that I could show more detail. I wanted to maintain the Fibonacci spiral of the disc florets that can number up to 400 per flower head. These open and wither over time in turn from the bottom upwards, thus providing food for insects in various weather conditions (for example, on a windy day, fewer insects fly).

I faced the challenges of portraying a three dimensional shape on all parts of my subject including the tiny disc florets, showing the velvety texture of the ray florets, and suggesting movement in the latter. I worked slowly, very gradually, in drybrush only, just a couple of hours per day, until I was satisfied with the result. R. columnifera don’t last long once picked so I was fortunate to have a ready supply in my garden.

According to the SEINet Data Portal Arizona-New Mexico Chapter at swbiodiversity.org, R. columnifera is used for many purposes by Indigenous peoples. For example, various parts of the plant can be used to make a tea-like beverage, or medicinally for rattlesnake bites, fever, stomachache, and poison ivy rash. It is also used ceremonially.

For me, this species provides joy for my gaze, and I feel happy knowing I am helping to support my local population of native insects and birds.

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Read more about this artist's work: Curious Allies