Story behind the art of Daniela Vendramin Alegre
27th Annual International
American Society of Botanical Artists and the Society of Illustrators
Tlacopatli
Aristolochia grandiflora
The smallest piece for the biggest flower.
The prize for the longest solitary flower in the world goes to the species Aristolochia grandiflora, with an average height of 66”, but registered as much as 118” on wild specimens. My artwork measures a mere seven by 10 inches.
I’ve always been attracted to unusual flowers and amazed by the strangest floral morphologies, so I never choose ordinary specimens for my illustrations. I typically work in graphite but this flower deserved to be shown in full color, so I changed my medium and did this piece as my first watercolor.
The frontal flower shows its beautiful zygomorphic symmetry1, its trap entrance for catching the pollinating flies (then later allowing them to escape), and the geometry of the limb extension, while the lateral view shows the still immature utricle (bladderlike structure) fused with the ring and limb.
Tlacopatli, in the Nahuatl language, is one of the many names given to this plant, which is endemic to southern Mexico and Central America.
Although being incredibly beautiful and humongous, this species is not well received as an ornamental or apt for indoors, because it produces a rotting odor similar to meat putrefaction. I have a very bad sense of smell, so the first time I saw this flower in the wild I didn’t even notice it smelled at all. It attracts the Calliphoridae family of insects as pollinators. These metallic colored insects are called blow flies, carrion flies, greenbottles, or bluebottles.
Many Mexican Indigenous cosmovisions (or combined sociocultural and biological interpretations of the environment) mention the use of this botanical species in medical and magical procedures. However, research has determined it contains compounds toxic to humans. Prohibitions exist throughout the globe regarding any substance extracted from the plant.
1Zygomorphic or bilateral symmetry means the flower can be divided into only two equal parts (or mirror images) by a line passing through the middle of the flower.
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