Just look and marvel.
This delicately detailed botanical study is by Heather Raeburn, one of three artists whose joint show opens this evening at Bon Papillon on Howe Street.
We'll return to the work of her fellow exhibitors in the next few days, taking one painting at a time so as fully to enjoy them.
Nomocharis pardathina – as many readers will already know – is a native of south-west Sichuan and north-west Yunan in China, and was 'first' discovered in 1883 by a French missionary thriving in scrub and forest fringes at altitudes of between 9,000 and 13,500 feet. Perhaps it was the abundant light, cool temperatures and long winter snow cover which he enjoyed so much.
The plant really caught on in Western horticultural circles after seeds collected by the Falkirk-born plant hunter George Forrest (below-right) were raised in the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh in 1914. The flowers caused a sensation.
The genus is well suited to the miseries of the climate here, but – rather like Scots living anywhere below Newcastle – easily becomes overheated and suffers from drought in England.
George Forrest lived from 1873 to 1932 and his adventures included interludes of gold-hunting in Australia, coffin-finding in the Scottish Borders, and fleeing from murderous Buddhist Lamas in the Tibetan Rebellion of 1905.
He visited Yunnan seven times and returned with around 31,000 plant species, some examples of which have now been returned to China where their existence is threatened in the wild.
You can read more about him in an RGBE publication of 2004 here.
[Image bottom-right: Wikipedia, Creative Commons.]