PALMS Smith: Leafletbv Leaflet Volume 45(3) 2001 Leaflet by Lucv T. Svrrn Leaflet Collegeof Music, Visual Arts and Theatre PO Box 25 Painting the lames Cook University Townsville,Q\d,4811, Palmsof North Australia Queensland 1.Oraniopsis appendiculota growing on the mossybank of a crystal-clearcreek at high altitude.on Mount Lewis. ln 1997, Lucy Smith embarked on a two-year Master of Creative Arts degree in illustration, designed to research and portray in detail the palm flora of North Queensland. The resulting collection of paintings captures eighteen of these palms in their natural habitats and forms, highlighting the diversity and beauty of both the palms and the environments in which they grow. PALMS4s(3): 127-135 127 PALMS Smith: Leafletby Leaflet Volume45(3) 200'l Images of palms in Australian art history The palms of Australia were painted and drawn for many purposesin the last two centuries.They appear in drawings for the description of new species,as elements in the painted landscape,and are also mentioned in the accounts of European exploration and settlement of the country. The palms that were most often mentioned and illustratedby early Europeanexplorers and settlers in Australia, from the 18th century onwards, were from the genera Livistona, Archontophoenix and Ptychosperma.Beginning with Joseph Banks' first observations of the Australian vegetation in 1 788 (in fact the only plant to which he could attribute a name), many accounts by early settlers and explorers "cabbage contained referencesto the palm." The cabbagepalm in question, Livistonaaustralis, indeed once grew quite extensively around Botany Bay, site of the first European landing, and Sydney Harbor, site of the first fleets of settlers.Those people keeping accountsof settlement were mostly interested in the palms' immedlate and potential practical usesin providing food and construction material. For a short time in Sydneyharbor (then known as PortJackson),in the absenceof other suitablewood for construction, the trunks of felled tlvls tona australiswere used to make temporary but basic shelters. 'wood' However, this did not last for longer than one or two wet summers before rotting away. Many 'cabbages' palms were also felled and the or growing tips eaten. Unfortunately the effect on the Sydney harbor palm population from this use was drastic. Barron Field, writing in 1825 noted that the palm "once trees which had . characterizedthe neighborhood of Port Jackson . have long been "the exhausted,"and that absenceof these treeshas taken away much from the tropical characterof Sydney." Livistona australis and Archontophoenixcunninghamiana carr still be found in the temperate rainforest of the Illawarra district, south of Sydney.In the 19th century, visiting landscapeartists. Eugene Von Gerard, Conrad Martens and John Skinner Prout included them in their romantic paintings of rainforest landscapesand scenesof bush settlement. Eugene Von Gerard in particular drew these palms with great accuracy. Australian palms were also illustrated from the early 19th century for scientific purposes.In 1802 Ferdinand Bauermade the first comprehensive,scientific illustration of an Australian palm when he My initiation into the world of palms came with the Wet Tropics Region. Within this region I found a project for the Townsville Palmetum in 1995. not only an interestingrange of speciesand forms, Under the guidance of local palm botanist John but also an even more interesting selection of Dowe, I explored twelve speciesof locally growing environments, which ranged from seasonally palms and painted them in watercolor to hang as flooded rivers and savannahplains, coastalforest, informative pieces for the visiting public. Since lowland woodland and rainforest, and high then, I was employed from time to time by John altitude woodland and rainforest. to make scientific pen and ink drawings of new with as many species speciesof palms from Australia, Vanuatu, and After familiarizing myself the PapuaNew Guinea. The prospect of a larger proiect planted locally aspossible, and reading up on I planned the most that enabled me to go further into my subject relevant scientific literature, - field work, than in previous prolects, held a lot of appeal. I important part of the research the to visit every decided to paint as many speciesof palms from during which I would endeavor speciesof north palm in the wild. the north Queensland region as possible, using Queensland Beach, detailed observation and information not The first, shorter trips were made to Mission previously explored. Cairns and Paluma. In the palm-dense Mission Beach region, I shot many rolls of film in the The native palm flora of Australia is so rich and extensive stand of Licuala ramsayiiust inland from diverse that the hardest task was to narrow my the coast. On the beachfront, large Arenga subject matter down. I did this by defining a palm- australasica,with leavesup to three metres long, rich areaand listing the number of speciesgrowing proved difficult to photograph, surrounded as they within its boundaries. I eventually arrived at a were by dense vine forest, fringing the coastal figure of around 35 species,which included sands.Graceful specimens of Ptychospermaelegans representativesof nearly all of the 19 genera in the grew in the nearby slopesof the coastalranges. Australian palm flora. This area ran from the Burdekin River in the south, east to the north Into the far northern reachesof the Wet Tropics Queensland coast, to the tip of Cape York area, I made the muddy ascent up Mount Lewis Peninsulain the north, and west to the edgesof in my trusty four-wheel-drive in an attempt to 128 PALMS Smith: Leaflet bv Leaflet Volume45(3) 2001 drew, and later painted in watercolor,Livistona inetmis, then incorrectly identified asLivistona humilis. The original drawing was most likely made from a specimen collected from an island in the Gulf of Carpentaria, and describedby scientist Robert Brown. Both Brown and Bauer were taking part in Matthew Flinders' voyage of 1801-1803, whose successfulmission saw the circumnavigation of the continent and the extensive collection of flora and fauna for scientific analysis and classification. Other scientific drawings were made for the description of new species,for example Linospadixmonostachya [Von Martius' Historia naturalispalmarum (1837)], and Livistonaaustralis [Curtis' Botanical Magazine (1857)]. Walter H. Fitch executed the color lithographs of Livistona australis for Curtis' Botanical Magazinefrom a specimensuccessfully growrr at Kew.Specimens of Livistonaaustralis grown from early collections of seedscan still be found today in most Europeanbotanical gardens Expedition artists recorded palms whilst taking part in exploration by both sea and land. In 1848, Oswald W Brierly, expedition artist on the voyage of the HMS Rattlesnake,made a revealing entry in his ship's diary. It tells of how a rare grove of mature, fruiting coconut palms had been discoveredby the ship's crew on one of the Frankland Islands,south of Cairns. Brierly noted his surprizein finding such a grove of mature trees, the first to be found during many years of exploration of the coast and islands. This unpublished artistic record, which includes an illustration and written description, places the earliestrecorded date for a known population of mature, wild-growing coconut palms in Australia backto 1848. ln other accounts,populations of wild palms were describedwith reactionsvarying from awe and admiration, to frustration. Engravings illustrating Huxley's 1852 account of the Edmund Kennedy expedition entitled "Cutting Through The Scrub" depict the thorny stemsof Calamusspecies blocking the way of men with horses who are attempting to traverse the dense lowland rainforest near Tully. The illustration does not really depict the true densenessof Calqmusaustralis and Calamusmoti (Fig. 4) thickets occurring in the towland rainforest of the area, now largely cleared for agriculture. These palms were specificallymentioned as a major sourceof delaysfor the expedition which began in 1848, and was subsequentlydisastrous when all but three men perished due to the unforeseendifficulties of traversingthe ruggednorth Queenslandlandscape. photograph Oraniopsisappendiculata (Fig. 1) and the banks of tributaries of the Burdekin River, Archontophoenixpurpurea (Fig. 2), the latter being which can remain completely dry for long periods a speciesendemic to one small area on the of time. The stand that I saw at the Cape River in mountain. I had previously visited the areawith the height of the dry seasonwas hit with floods John Dowe during the collection of a new species, of over three metersheight some six months later, Linospadixapetiolata, and knew it to be a fickle when heavy rains flooded the area during a place as far as rainy weather and sunlight were cyclone. In more lush woodland surroundings on concerned. Sure enough, the mist was thick and the edge of the rainforest grew Livistonq qustralis the rain unrelenting but our patience was (Fig.3), a distinctive form of the most widespread rewarded when, in sight of a stand of Australian palm species,found in the Bluewater Archontophoenix purpurea, the clouds cleared and PalumaRanges. In the disturbedrain forest of momentarily. For a brief few minutes I was the wetter regions of these rangesr thickets of rewarded with the sight of shafts of sunlight Calamus moti (Fig. 4) and C. australis grew in reaching through the mist and illuminating the profusion. beautiful palms, framed