Image Title: The Temple of Flora: Dragon Arum Source: The Temple of Flora Creator: Thornton, Robert John Publisher: London : Collins, 1956. Call Number: QK98 .T5 1951 Learn More Tags: flowers

 

This spectacular image of a dragon arum is found in Robert John Thornton’s The Temple of Flora, published in 1807. In his description, Thornton personifies this extremely poisonous plant as female: “…issuing from her nostrils flies a noisome vapour, infecting the ambient air: her hundred arms are interspersed with white as in the garments of the inquisition; and on her swollen trunk are observed speckles of a mighty dragon; her sex is strangely intermingled with the opposite! …her fruits are poison berries, grated to the sight but fatal to the taste…It arranges under Class XX. Gynandria, Order V. Polyandria, of Linnaeus.”

This image can be found in The Temple of the Flora at Woodward Library at UBC (QK98. T5 1951).

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