Arcadópolis
Foxglove and Fern
Louisa Anne Meredith, 1836
What you see
A foxglove spike leans to the left, heavy with purple tubular flowers that open toward us. Small green buds crowd the top, and the flowers grow larger as they descend. Behind, a fern frond stretches up and to the right, its leaflets set like the teeth of a comb. The eye travels down the spike to the open mouths of the flowers.
The purple runs from dark in the shadowed tubes to pale lilac at the rims. Inside each flower are many dark speckles ringed with a pale halo. The green of the fern is lighter and fresher. Seek out the brown dots, lined up in rows, on the underside of some of the fern’s leaflets.
About Louisa Anne Meredith
Louisa Anne Meredith was born in Birmingham and, before she married, had already published in England, under her maiden name, Twamley, books of poems and flowers illustrated by herself. In 1839 she married and emigrated to Australia, and from 1840 she lived in Tasmania. A writer, naturalist and illustrator, she painted the flowers, birds and insects of the Tasmanian bush in great detail, and published her plates in books such as “Some of My Bush Friends in Tasmania”. She was also a member of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
More by Louisa Anne Meredith
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