Purple Passionflower
Passiflora incarnata
A weedy vine with a most complicated flower. Its common name refers not to sexual passion, but to the passion of Jesus: the five stamens suggest the five wounds of his crucifixion; the fringed corona, his crown of thorns. It is also called “Maypop” because its egg-shaped fruits make a popping sound when stepped on. However, despite the name, the fruits don’t appear until mid-summer. They are supposed to contain a delicious pulp, but the ones I found were hollow, except for seeds.

Traditionally, the roots of the plant were used as an anti-spasmodic and sedative. Modern research confirms that root extracts are mildly sedative and slightly reduce blood pressure.

Watercolor - sold
9” x 13 5/8” giclee prints available

Transitions
After the death of my mother in September 2009, an artist friend sent me a bountiful bouquet of white lilies in bud. I sketched them as they opened, but it was the spent lilies that fell onto my tabletop that spoke to me: they were dead, yet they were still changing. There was movement and beauty in the curls of their petals. I drew them in red tones – red being the color of blood and life.

Color pencil sold

9 ½” x 10” giclee prints available

Ginseng
Panax quinquefolium
For centuries, this woodland plant has been famous as magical cure-all. In the 1700s, Jesuit missionaries created a booming demand for American ginseng in China. Fortunes were made in exporting it. Daniel Boone hunted ginseng to pay off his ever-present debts from land speculation. Today ginseng is still agressively hunted, causing it to be listed as a threatened species. Most herbalists classify ginseng as an “adaptogen” which supports the body in times of stress.

Most commonly, the ginseng root is depicted propped up like a priapic “little man”. (The name “ginseng” is thought to derive from the Chinese word schin-shen or “man-plant”.) But the root I drew looked plump and feminine, as senusous as an odalisque. I took the artistic license to curl its long stem into a womb-like shape around its recumbent golden root.

For current research on plant see www.monticello.org/library/exhibits/lucymarks/index.html

Watercolor sold
10” x 16” giclee prints available

Black Cohosh
Cimicifuga racemosa
Thomas Jefferson lists Cimicifuga as “black snake root” and describes it as a medicinal herb in his only published book, Notes on the State of Virginia. Like most folk remedies, it was used to treat a wide variety of multiple complaints: bronchitis, cholera, fevers, nervous disorders, lumbago, rheumatism, snakebites. It was also used in childbirth and for menstrual irregularities. Black cohosh was a main ingredient in the famous “Lydia E. Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound” used by many women in the 19th century for a variety of disorders, including menopause-associated hot flashes.

For current research on plant see www.monticello.org/library/exhibits/lucymarks/index.html

Watercolor and graphite NFS

Jimsonweed
Datura stramonium
A member of the nightshade family, the Datura’s dangerous reputation intrigues me. The plant is violently toxic – a hallucinogen that can be lethal. Shamans and Native Americans have long used its pyschotrophic effects in religious rituals. Thomas Jefferson described it as an “elegant” and “rational” Kavorkian-type way to end suffering from incurable diseases. Today, its medical compounds (belladonna alkaloids like atropine and scopolamine) have been used to treat a variety of diseases from Parkinson’s to vertigo. However, few clinical trials have been conducted because of its extreme toxicity.

It is a witchy looking plant with a rank smell. It thrives in weedy fields and roadsides and is so attractive to insects that it’s hard to find an undamaged leaf. I had to wonder if they got high on it. I was particularly taken with the internal architecture of the seedpod - a tiara-like structure that chambers the tiny, but potent lentil-shaped seeds – so I drew it magnified in graphite beside the watercolor life-sized portrait of the plant in bloom.

For current research on plant see www.monticello.org/library/exhibits/lucymarks/index.html

Watercolor and graphite

sold

Puttyroot
Aplectrum hyemale
Also called “Adam-and-Eve” for the way each new root tuber sprouts out of the previous year’s tuber. The small, lumpy tubers contain a sticky goo used by Native Americans to repair broken pottery. (No data on how well the pots held together.) In winter, this orchid’s single leaf is green with white pinstripes – easy to spot in the bare woods. In the spring, the leaf dies back as the plant flowers. The flower stalk is about 10 inches high and the individual little orchids on it measure about three-quarters of an inch.

Watercolor, graphite, color pencil

sold

Downey Rattlesnake-Plantain
Goodyera pubescens
Common in our Virginia woods, this little orchid is easy to recognize from the “snake-skin” pattern on its rosette of basal leaves, each of which was about an inch long on the plants I found. Native Americans and European colonists used the root to treat snake bite. A tea from its leaves was taken (with whiskey) as a “blood” tonic, and to treat colds, toothaches, and poor appetite. Modern research has discovered no pharmacological properties.

Watercolor and graphite

$600

Bitterroot
Lewisia rediviva
Done for the 2006 exhibit,
"The Botanical Treasures of Lewis and Clark"
at the Cocoran Gallery of Art,
Washington, DC 2006:

Watercolor and graphite NFS. 10" x 6 3/4" giclee prints available

Arrowleaf Balsamroot
Balsamorhiza sagittata
Done for the 2006 exhibit,
"The Botanical Treasures of Lewis and Clark"
at the Cocoran Gallery of Art,
Washington, DC 2006.

Watercolor and graphite 53" x 24" NFS

Article

"Subdivisions #1"
Watercolor,
graphite, colored pencil

"Subdivisions #2"
Watercolor,
graphite, colored pencil

"Cherry Belle"
Watercolor

Virginia Bluebell
Mertensia Virginica
Watercolor and graphite