Week 5: The collections of plants in SOHO Square

Joseph Banks' Florilegium

The young artist Sydney Parkinson traveled to the Pacific with Joseph Banks on board Cook's ship, the Endeavour. He made nearly 1000 drawings of the people, landscapes, animals and plants they found there but sadly he died on the voyage. Banks employed 18 engravers to produce 753 copper plates from Parkinson's drawings for a florilegium ( an anthology of flowers). He sent proof prints including the one shown here, to Linnaeus, who gave Banks name to a new genus of plants: Banksia serrata.

The project of this week was very interesting. As I found a picture and a copper plate in British Museum which recorded the historical exploration of the plants, I thought if I could make another collection about plants in a certain area in London, just to imitate the process of exploration, that must be interesting and meaningful. So I spent 3 days to visit 5 parks and squares: Green Park, Hyde Park, Regent's Park, SOHO Square and Golden Square. Then there was a big problem for me in the 3 parks. I was confused about the various types of plants in the parks, they looked similar but different actually, so that I can't distinguish them very well. Therefore, I decided to choose SOHO Square as the main area of my collection as there were just 17-18 sorts of plants with clear features. 

After that,  I spent one day to get familiar with the plants in SOHO Square including observing, drawing and taking photos. Also I picked up several fallen leaves of each plant for collection. And I wanted to use a different method to present my collection, so I put all the leaves in series, from small to big , and each section contained 4 parts: one photo, one shadow and light space which printed on the transparent material, one hand drawing and one real fallen leaves. Then the last work for me was to find out which specific types they were. Fortunately, a website called PlantAdvice helped me a lot. It gave accurate illustration and description about the plants.
http://www.plantadvice.co.uk/index.php
Actually, it was a great fun to deal with the plants. I was extremely attracted by their different natural features, living environment, shape of leaves, color of flowers and so on.
I will continue my plants research in the following project.