NATURAL WONDERS

The seventh Botanical Art Biennale, which opened on August 30 at Kirstenbosch, celebrates a landmark year for our flora

K IRSTEN BOSCH National Botanical Garden is 100 years old this year, but the drawing and painting of Cape flowers began at least 200 years earlier when plant collectors from passing ships began exploring the peninsula.

For centuries, botanical drawings were a vital means of recording and sharing information, but skilled artists and engravers also set out to capture the innate character and beauty of even the humblest plant. The age of exploration was also the age of curiosity and these illustrations supplied a world hungry for natural wonders with revelation after revelation.

A new generation of botanic artists are continuing to do this, and more. The exquisite works on display in this year’s Botanical Art Biennale are not only a fresh revelation of the beauty of the natural world; they are also a reminder of its fragility.

The exhibition has a timely theme: “Medicinal and traditional-use plants of southern Africa.” The brief also included the symbiotic relationships between the plant and animal kingdoms, highlighting the vigilance required if the sustainability of these limited resources is to be ensured.

The Botanical Art Biennale runs from August 30 to September 15, sponsored by Old Mutual, in the Conference Centre at Kirstenbosch. Visit sanbi.org/events

Acokanthera oppositifolia, Bushman’s poison, is an attractive shrub with dark green leaves and sweetly scented flowers that grow in kloofs and woodland. The milky sap was traditionally used for arrow poison, but all parts of the plants are poisonous,...

• Adenia digitata, the wild granadilla, is a climber that grows from a large tuber, which contains one of the most potent of all plant toxins, a compound known as modeccin. Traditionally used as an arrow poison, it has also been the subject of research...

Brunsvigia grandiflora, one of our most spectacular bulbs, was chosen by British artist Kath Baker and painted in classic style. The bulb grows in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal and is used in traditional medicine as a dressing for wounds,...

• Gnidia kraussiana is a grassland shrub that grows from a thick underground tuber. It is host to a rare butterfly, Erikssonia edgei (the Waterberg Copper), which was thought to be extinct until rediscovered recently. The larvae feed on the leaves,...

• Liparia splendens, the mountain dahlia, painted by Cape artist Ebraime Hull, is a rare and beautiful fynbos shrub pollinated by sunbirds. Its seeds have a fleshy collar, or aril, which is attractive to ants. In a symbiosis characteristic of the...