|
Pomological Watercolor Collection
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Pomological Watercolor Collection is an archive of some 7,500 botanical watercolors created for the USDA between the years 1886 and 1942 by around five dozen artists. Housed by the United States National Agricultural Library, it is a unique resource documenting existing fruit and nut cultivars, new introductions, and specimens discovered by USDA's plant explorers, representing 38 plant families in all. It has been called "one of the world's most unusual holdings of late 19th and early 20th century American botanical illustrations". The archive spans the years in which American agriculture greatly expanded the range of fruits and vegetables grown on a commercial scale and developed many new cultivars. The USDA artists created the watercolors in an effort to catalog these cultivars—many of which went under different names in different regions of the United States—and to show the damage resulting from typical diseases and pests of specific fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roberta Cowing
Roberta Cowing Throckmorton (October 1860 - July 31, 1924) was an American artist, employed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Early life Roberta Cowing was born to William Jackson Cowing (1832–1893) and Matilda Helen Crupper Cowing (1837–1896) in October of 1860, in Rushville, Rush County, Indiana, USA. She had one older brother, Frank Myrtle Cowing (1857–1894). Career Cowing was employed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to paint watercolors of fruit and nut varieties, as part of the USDA's Pomological Watercolor Collection. The collection includes paintings of Prunus salicina ( Japanese plum), Pyrus communis (pears), and Rubus (brambles). She made illustrations of plants collected in an 1891 botanical survey of Death Valley; the work was published in an educational journal. ''Collections from the U.S. National Herbarium'' published twenty-one drawings of plants collected in Death Valley in their No ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pomology
Pomology (from Latin , “fruit,” + ) is a branch of botany that studies fruit and its cultivation. The term fruticulture—introduced from Romance languages (all of whose incarnations of the term descend from Latin and )—is also used. Pomological research is mainly focused on the development, enhancement, cultivation and physiological studies of fruit trees. The goals of fruit tree improvement include enhancement of fruit quality, regulation of production periods, and reduction of production cost. One involved in the science of pomology is called a pomologist. History Middle East In ancient Mesopotamia, pomology was practiced by the Sumerians, who are known to have grown various types of fruit, including dates, grapes, apples, melons, and figs. While the first fruits cultivated by the Egyptians were likely indigenous, such as the palm date and sorghum, more fruits were introduced as other cultural influences were introduced. Grapes and watermelon were found throughout pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Botanical Art
Botanical illustration is the art of depicting the form, color, and details of plant species, frequently in watercolor paintings. They must be scientifically accurate but often also have an artistic component and may be printed with a botanical description in books, magazines, and other media or sold as a work of art. Often composed by a botanical illustrator in consultation with a scientific author, their creation requires an understanding of plant morphology and access to specimens and references. Typical illustrations are in watercolour, but may also be in oils, ink or pencil, or a combination of these. The image may be life size or not, the scale is often shown, and may show the habit and habitat of the plant, the upper and reverse sides of leaves, and details of flowers, bud, seed and root system. Botanical illustration is sometimes used as a type for attribution of a botanical name to a taxon. The inability of botanists to conserve certain dried specimens, or restrictio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Art Collections In The United States
Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of what constitutes art, and its interpretation has varied greatly throughout history and across cultures. In the Western tradition, the three classical branches of visual art are painting, sculpture, and architecture. Theatre, dance, and other performing arts, as well as literature, music, film and other media such as interactive media, are included in a broader definition of the arts. Until the 17th century, ''art'' referred to any skill or mastery and was not differentiated from crafts or sciences. In modern usage after the 17th century, where aesthetic considerations are paramount, the fine arts are separated and distinguished from acquired skills in general, such as the decorative or applied arts. The nature of art and related concepts, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Journal Of Botanical History
A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes''. It is similar in shape to the Ancient Greek letter alpha, from which it derives. The uppercase version consists of the two slanting sides of a triangle, crossed in the middle by a horizontal bar. The lowercase version can be written in two forms: the double-storey a and single-storey ɑ. The latter is commonly used in handwriting and fonts based on it, especially fonts intended to be read by children, and is also found in italic type. In English grammar, " a", and its variant " an", are indefinite articles. History The earliest certain ancestor of "A" is aleph (also written 'aleph), the first letter of the Phoenician alphabet, which consisted entirely of consonants (for that reason, it is also called an abjad to distinguish it fro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gooseberry
Gooseberry ( or (American and northern British) or (southern British)) is a common name for many species of ''Ribes'' (which also includes currants), as well as a large number of plants of similar appearance. The berries of those in the genus ''Ribes'' (sometimes placed in the genus ''Grossularia'') are edible and may be green, orange, red, purple, yellow, white, or black. Etymology The ''goose'' in ''gooseberry'' has been mistakenly seen as a corruption of either the Dutch word or the allied German , or of the earlier forms of the French . Alternatively, the word has been connected to the Middle High German ('curl, crisped'), in Latin as . However, the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' takes the more literal derivation from ''goose'' and ''berry'' as probable because "the grounds on which plants and fruits have received names associating them with animals are so often inexplicable that the inappropriateness in the meaning does not necessarily give good grounds for believin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sweetsop
The sugar-apple or sweet-sop is the edible fruit of ''Annona squamosa'', the most widely grown species of '' Annona'' and a native of tropical climate in the Americas and West Indies. Spanish traders aboard the Manila galleons docking in the Philippines brought it to Asia. The fruit is spherical-conical, in diameter and long, and weighing , with a thick rind composed of knobby segments. The color is typically pale green through blue-green, with a deep pink blush in certain varieties, and typically has a bloom. It is unique among ''Annona'' fruits in being segmented; the segments tend to separate when ripe, exposing the interior. The flesh is fragrant and sweet, creamy white through light yellow, and resembles and tastes like custard. It is found adhering to seeds forming individual segments arranged in a single layer around a conical core. It is soft, slightly grainy, and slippery. The hard, shiny seeds may number 20–40 or more per fruit and have a brown to black coat, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Natal Plum
''Carissa macrocarpa'' is a shrub native to tropical and southern Africa. It is commonly known as the Natal plum and, in South Africa, the large num-num. In Zulu, as well as in the Bantu tribes of Uganda, it is called ''Amathungulu'' or ''umThungulu oBomvu''. In Afrikaans the fruit is called ''noem-noem''. ''C. macrocarpa'' deals well with salt-laden winds, making it a good choice for coastal areas. It is commonly found in the coastal bush of the Eastern Cape and Natal.Sparrow, Jacqueline and Gil Hanly. (2002), ''Subtropical Plants: A Practical Gardening Guide'', Portland, OR: Timber Press, Inc. It produces shiny, deep green leaves and snowy white flowers whose perfumed scent intensifies at night. Like other ''Carissa'' species, ''C. macrocarpa'' is a spiny, evergreen shrub containing latex. They bloom for months at a time. The ornamental plump, round, crimson fruit appears in summer and fall (autumn) at the same time as the blooms. In moderate, coastal areas the fruits appe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Avocado
The avocado (''Persea americana'') is a medium-sized, evergreen tree in the laurel family (Lauraceae). It is native to the Americas and was first domesticated by Mesoamerican tribes more than 5,000 years ago. Then as now it was prized for its large and unusually oily fruit. The tree likely originated in the highlands bridging south-central Mexico and Guatemala. Its fruit, sometimes also referred to as an alligator or avocado pear, is botanically a large berry containing a single large seed. Avocado trees are partially self-pollinating, and are often propagated through grafting to maintain consistent fruit output. Avocados are presently cultivated in the tropical and Mediterranean climates of many countries. Mexico is the world's leading producer of avocados as of 2020, supplying nearly 30% of the global harvest in that year. The fruit of domestic varieties have smooth, buttery, golden-green flesh when ripe. Depending on the cultivar, avocados have green, brown, purplish, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cherimoya
The cherimoya (''Annona cherimola''), also spelled chirimoya and called chirimuya by the Inca people, is a species of edible fruit-bearing plant in the genus '' Annona'', from the family Annonaceae, which includes the closely related sweetsop and soursop. The plant has long been believed to be native to Ecuador and Peru, with cultivation practiced in the Andes and Central America, although a recent hypothesis postulates Central America as the origin instead, because many of the plant's wild relatives occur in this area. Cherimoya is grown in tropical and subtropical regions throughout the world including Central America, northern South America, Southern California, South Asia, Australia, the Mediterranean region, and North Africa. American writer Mark Twain called the cherimoya "the most delicious fruit known to men". The creamy texture of the flesh gives the fruit its secondary name, the custard apple. Etymology The name is derived from the Quechua word ''chirimuya'', which m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amelanchier
''Amelanchier'' ( ), also known as shadbush, shadwood or shadblow, serviceberry or sarvisberry (or just sarvis), juneberry, saskatoon, sugarplum, wild-plum or chuckley pear,A Digital Flora of Newfoundland and Labrador Vascular Plants/ref> is a genus of about 20 species of deciduous-leaved shrubs and small trees in the rose family (Rosaceae). ''Amelanchier'' is native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere, growing primarily in early successional habitats. It is most diverse taxonomically in North America, especially in the northeastern United States and adjacent southeastern Canada, and at least one species is native to every U.S. state except Hawaii and to every Canadian province and territory. Two species also occur in Asia, and one in Europe. The taxonomic classification of shadbushes has long perplexed botanists, horticulturalists, and others, as suggested by the range in number of species recognized in the genus, from 6 to 33, in two recent publications. A major so ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
_1887.jpg "Click for more on -> Roberta Cowing")
