Tag: leaf of the day

Leaf of the Day: The Banyan and Goldenrod in Fort Myers

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I have recently encountered 2 amazing banyan trees. One at The Landings in Sarasota and the next one farther south at Fort Myers where Chris and I were having a weekend break. The majestic and stately banyan in Fort Myers is part of the Ford Edison estate which we visited yesterday.

This particular tree was given to Edison by Henry Firestone in 1925 as a 4 foot sapling when he, Edison and Henry Ford were pursuing the possibilities of a domestic source of rubber at the laboratory in Fort Myers. It was said to have been taken from the Great Banyan in the Shibpur Botanical garden near Calcutta the largest Banyan in the world.
The history and growing habits of the banyan (Ficus bengalensis) are completely fascinating and it is a botanical wonder. The tree starts life as an epiphyte, settling on the branch or bark crevice of another tree. It gradually takes over from its host by producing aerial roots and, once established, auxiliary roots sprout from the branches like long strands of spaghetti. The tree must somehow sense the need for more support and these become supportive trunks necessary to prop up its massive spreading horizontal limbs and so it spreads, on and on .. “walking” its way across huge areas of ground.

In an HGTV article on the Banyan, Bob McGuire explains the effects of the tree!!!
“Bob McGuire, chief arborist at the Thomas Edison Estate, counts the prop roots of the Edison banyan and finds there are 323.
“Visitors touch the roots and they talk to them,” McGuire says. “People are awestruck by the tree. You can tell by their faces. And you know, we still are too. I’m still in awe of it every day.”
There are many other interesting plants and trees to see at the estate set on the banks of the Caloosahatchee River.

W. Stoker, D. Redman after James Forbes., 1811

A few words from Milton:
“The fig-tree at this day to Indians known
In Malabar or Deccan, spreads her arms,
Branching so broad and long, that on the ground
The bended twigs take root, and daughters grow
About the mother tree, a pillar’d shade,
High over-arched and echoing walks between.”
Milton “Paradise Lost”

The tree was found not to be able to produce rubber in Florida however and Edison then turned his incredible mind and boundless energy to finding another source. He discovered the lovely autumn flowering Goldenrod was capable of producing rubber and there is a huge dried specimen in the laboratory at the museum which Edison had bred for commercial rubber production.
There is a short informative article about him here. and the link to the Museum site in Fort Myers is here
The lab visit alone is worth the price of entry.
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The Banyan

Leaf of the Day: Experimental Grasses

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Some very nonspecific grass this time just to try out a couple of techniques from the course. This is done in liquid acrylics but using a wet in wet technique. Much of it, good and bad, is accidental. The scan has picked up the texture of the watercolour paper too much and has made it more grainy than it is in real life. Even with the amount of freedom these techniques give you, you need quite a bit of pre-planning.I am looking forward to more experiments on a larger scale.
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Experimental Grass

Leaf of the Day: Sea Grape 2

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Sea Grape 2 is an experimental image from the course I am attending here in lovely Sarasota. On Nicholas Simmons excellent course “Watercolour on the Edge” we are experimenting with techniques that explore the waterproof qualities of liquid acrylics, allowing layering and washing out. The possibilities are fabulous, but as with many painting techniques, you need to understand how paint, paper and drying times work together. Happy or unhappy accidents have to be taken on the chin as there is definitely no softening of these edges when the paint is dry. It is not for the faint hearted and needs a big stack of good quality paper to really experiment.

Nicholas has an enormous amount of information to share and the course is really enjoyable.. It could not be much farther away from the discipline of botanical painting but that was its attraction for me.
Visit his site at Nicholas Simmons.com and see the lovley Fresh Sushi which won the top prize in the 2007 National Watercolor Society Exhibition.
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Sea Grape 2

Leaf of the Day: Sea Grape

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A big round leaf from the sea grape ‘coccoloba uvifera’ growing on the shore line at Sarasota. I am attending an art course here and will post more about it soon. I walk by the sea every morning and watch the wonderful pelicans.

The red veins of this leaf are beautiful and the young leaves are a bright reddy orange. The plant is used in the West Indies to produce a red dye. The fruits although not grapes as such, are edible but have a large central stone more like an olive. They are used to make jellies, jams and wine.
On the little British Virgin Island Anagada they make brandy and wine. There is an interesting short piece about Anagada here. Patience must be a key virtue of the Anagadians as they have to let the brandy infuse for two or three years!
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Sea Grape

Still leafless in Linconshire: Weeping Ash & Two Rooks

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Sitting sketching in the dining room, I had a good view of the other magnificent weeping tree in our Lincolnshire garden. This weeping ash has been the same as long as I can remember and we moved to this garden thirty two years ago. In the summer this beautiful old tree makes an almost perfect enclosed circle with its leafy branches, a secret den of shade, dark and cool inside. In the spring when the light can get to the ground under the bare branches, aconites and snowdrops push up between the ivy and fallen twigs. We always watch the tree for its first leaves.
” Ash before oak, we shall have a soak.
Oak before ash we shall have a splash”..
Thankfully the black buds of the ash are normally the last to appear. When I went home last year in May it was just getting its first leaves. Weather lore is another fascinating subject which I will no doubt return to and the superstitions about trees are legion. A couple of rooks kept returning to caw in the branches. I am very fond of rooks.

Again with this drawing I misjudged the size of the tree and it is spilling off the edges of page. I have taken some photos of the twisted stems of the trunk which I hope to use for a large painting in due time.
I am still regarding these sketches as warm ups. Its just a good discipline to try to do something every day..this one is with a felt tip pen. It was a difficult job scanning it, as the paper is just slightly bigger than A4. I had to do it in 2 halves and deal with shadows on the paper, but I think it’s OK for a sketch.
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Weeping Ash..with rooks!

Leafless of the day: Weeping Beech

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I am now back in Orlando very briefly before going to Sarasota tomorrow for a course, but have a few posts still to make of the winter Lincolnshire landscape where the deciduous trees show off their beautiful tracery of branches. This sketch is of the magnificent weeping beech in our old garden. The spread of this tree is immense..much more than the drawing suggests.. as you can see I ran out of room on the paper.
Its twisting branches rear up and fall again in long searching fingers with a million fine stems falling to the ground. In the summer the tumbling leaves obscure the main trunk and clothe most of the lower branches, but the tops of the branches are always visible, I used to think they were like huge bony hands holding up skirts of wind blown swaying leaves. It is very beautiful.

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Weeping Beech

Leaves of the Day: Sloe, Elder & Watercress

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Yesterday I went to see an old friend, Eileen Elder. She has researched and written articles and books about Lincolnshire customs, language and food, two of which I illustrated many years ago. “Lincolnshire Country Food” was a delightful little book packed with information about the history of Lincolnshire country people and their food and recipes.

It has long been a real favourite of mine, but sold out and has been out of print for many years. I had decided it was long overdue for a reprint and Eileen has agreed, so this is now one of my new projects. It was so good to catch up on what must be 20 years ..we could have talked for days. It reminded me yet again how much I love Lincolnshire its history and its landscape.
So “Leaves of the Day” today is just this little margin drawing from the book from 1984.. soon to be back in print one way or another!

Talking to Eileen about my illustration course she reminded me of the connection between Revesby Abbey in Lincolnshire and Sir Joseph Banks the great naturalist who accompanied Cook on his Australian expedition.
With them went two artists, Sydney Parkinson and Alexander Buchan, who both sadly died before seeing England again, but Parkinson made at least 1300 drawings on the voyage before contracting dysentery and dying at sea in 1771. What incredible lives these people had. My next trip to London will include a visit to the British museum to see his drawings.

Leaf of the Day: Snowdrop

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No spring garden is complete without snowdrops. Here is a sketch of three from under one of the apple trees. As I am in Tennyson country I feel I should favour his snowdrop poem.. simple and optimistic. It was written late in his life in 1889.

The Snowdrop
Many, many welcomes,
February fair-maid,
Ever as of old time,
Solitary firstling,
Coming in the cold time,
Prophet of the gay time,
Prophet of the May time,
Prophet of the roses,
Many, many welcomes,
February fair-maid!

Alfred Lord Tenyson

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Snowdrop

Leaf of the Day: Aconite

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An aconite from under the weeping ash tree. They are so pretty and dainty with their green fringe and glossy yellow petals. Locally they are known as “choirboys “, an innocent and charming image, but like the hellebore from yesterday they are poisonous. Their root is similar to Horseradish and that confusion had added a deadly zest to some roast beef in the past.
The Latin name is “Eranthis hyemalis” and together with the hellebore they are part of the ranunculus genus..buttercups.
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Winter Aconite.

Leaf of the Day: Lenten Rose

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Here I am at home in Lincolnshire. Spring is just getting underway and the low sun is slanting across the garden through the bare trees. Delightful little snowdrops and aconites carpet the grass under the branches of the weeping ash and this beautiful purple Lenten Rose (helleboris orientalis) is in bloom under the old apple tree. I only had time for a quick sketch today which does not do it justice at all.

These are mysterious plants with dark purple flowers, called the Lenten Rose as they often bloom during the 40 days before Easter, later than their showier relative the Christmas Rose. The plant is extremely toxic, the word ‘hellebore‘ derived from the Greek “elein” meaning to injure and “bora” meaning food. It has a deliciously bad history in medicine and since Greek times it has been employed as a poison, purgative and magic potion… even as a spell for becoming invisible. Hellebore is one of the classic poisons along with aconite, hemlock and nightshade. John Calvin, regarded it as “a good purgation for phrenticke heads.”

Mysterious, deadly and beautiful… to be handled with some caution I think.

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Lenten Rose