Botanical Illustrator Returns to Her Ferns

From Plant Press, Vol. 18, No. 3, July 2015.

By Elizabeth Jacobsen

Mary Monsma points out similarities in close-up studies of ferns she illustrated for David Lellinger. She is now scanning these images as part of the herbarium digitization project. (photo by Elizabeth Jacobsen)

Mary Monsma has the eye of an artist. The ink-on-film fern illustrations that she drew 40 years ago look like suncatchers as she moves them from the counter to the scanner, smiling as she points out the similar features, then flipping through the book where they are published to show the finished product. On the computer, she enlarges the scanned images to reveal even greater detail, zooming close enough to see that the stippling dots are not perfectly round. “Those are artifacts of long ago,” she says, referring to the imperfections of hand drawing. She could just as easily be referring to the illustrations themselves, which are being scanned to usher in a new age of accessibility.

More than 10 years after she finished a set of 1,178 fern illustrations for David Lellinger, Monsma has returned to her drawings as part of a project to digitally archive all illustrations rendered for Smithsonian botanists. A room on the 4^th floor was recently designated as a storage room for these drawings, and Monsma is working on archiving the entire collection as a part of the larger herbarium scanning project. Each scanned illustration receives a label that includes the scientific name of the species (as it was designated at the time the drawing was completed), the collector’s name, the specimen number, the herbarium name, and the illustrator’s name. Once scanned, images may be edited in Photoshop, allowing the artists to easily change the size, refine any issues, rearrange on the plate, or digitally add color or texture—“and that’s the joy of Photoshop,” Monsma laughed.

Mary Monsma examines her illustrations in Photoshop. (photo by Elizabeth Jacobsen)

Monsma began illustrating as a contractor for Conrad Morton, then started working with Lellinger in 1974 to create the illustrations for The Ferns and Fern-allies of Costa Rica, Panama, and the Choco (Part 1: Psilotaceae through Dicksoniaceae). During a 30-year time period she completed 582 drawings for that publication, and another 596 drawings for the second volume. Part 2 was never published, however, as the classification of ferns had changed too much. She contracted with numerous other Smithsonian botanists throughout that time, including José Cuatrecasas, as well as for other institutions including the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Peace Corps, Micronesia Historic Preservation Programs, and Barbara Barnsley and Alex George, Commonwealth of Australia. She also was one of three illustrators for Edward Ayensu’s Medicinal Plants of the West Indies, and has been a part of the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators since the 1980s.

“Basically, the illustrator is there at the service of the curator,” Monsma remarked. Lellinger requested drawings as enlargements or reductions to emphasize certain details of the ferns. Monsma described that she would first use the camera lucida—a device that allows the artist to trace over a magnified view of the specimen through a scope—to make a rough sketch that captured the proportions and angles of the enlarged plant. She would then refine the drawings, tracing them onto film in ink with dip pens. The drawings on plastic were photographed, cut, and pasted into an arrangement for a plate. Monsma typically drew a particular feature from all the species within a genus to provide a comparison. “It’s really fun to go through all of them and see the differences,” she says.

Mary Monsma scans close-up fern illustrations. (photo by Elizabeth Jacobsen)

Monsma recounted the adventures that could come along with illustrating. “The illustrator’s job,” she observed, “was to sort through what’s not important and show what is important.” This job includes the challenge of making pressed, dried plants appear lifelike, drawing out subtle features like veins, and reconstructing incomplete specimens. Sometimes the artist needs some guidance to identify important features. For example, Frankenia, a genus found in Australia, accumulates salt crystals in diagnostic ways—a feature that should not be brushed off as dirt! Other times, the artist’s close examination of a plant reveals new features the scientist had not noticed. Monsma pointed to the number of ovaries in different plants she had illustrated, describing how she had observed ovary patterns as she dissected different flowers for illustrations.

Selaginella martensii (Selaginellaceae). Illustrated by Mary Monsma.

Since illustrations are designed to clearly delineate the defining features of a plant, scanned images are valuable to have available for botanists to reference. Scanning a collection of illustrations from a particular region, such as Monsma’s fern illustrations from Costa Rica, Panama, and the Chocó, may be valuable to the understanding of fern classification. The illustrations are especially significant as a part of the larger herbarium digitization project. Just like the herbarium specimens, illustrations in the storeroom—including Mary Eaton’s illustrations from the early 1900s for Britton & Rose Cactaceae, Vol. 3—have both scientific and historic value.

Comments

[Catherine Wardrop]

Hi Mary,
Having read this article, everything is so familiar! - Lesley Elkan and I are the illustrators at RBG Sydney. Its always nice to hear about others across the world, labouring away exactly as we do. Your drawings are beautiful, by the way.
If you do return to drawing (after all of that scanning), please bear in mind the annual Margaret Flockton Award for Scientific Botanical Illustration. http://www.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/education/art_and_illustration/Margaret_Flockton_Award_2015_exhibition

Lesley and I are the curators of this award and you would be most welcome to enter (it's free) and perhaps win some $AUD! Just check the website for all of the details. Please pass on to any illustrators you may know as well. Its an international exhibition and competition, and the Brazilians and Mexicans are running amok in the prize pool! They need some competition.

I hope to see an entry from you in the near future perhaps, and thank you for your article.
With best wishes,

Catherine Wardrop

[Mary Greydanus]

Mary, at my job in the Palm Beach County library, I just scanned a Smithsonian book of plant sketches and IMMEDIATELY pictured you. Went right over to the computer and put in your name and the word art. Voila, got to this place. So nice to see you. If you get a chance, send me an email at maryg51@hotmail.com Would love to hear from you. Meantime, love to you and Denny. :)

[Elisha]

Such beautiful work. As a florist and artist I absolutely love botanical illustration. (I appreciate the scientific significance as well :) )