Our subject is the Illustrated Flora of Turkey project, and we are in the final stretch with one of its most elusive groups: the crocuses. As we close in on the last drawings for this genus in Volume 3, the excitement is building.
With 138 species in Turkey, this vast and complex group has been quite a challenge — both for us illustrators and for the authors preparing the account for the upcoming volume. Despite the hard work, we are delighted to say that nearly 110 illustrations have now been completed. These were produced by the talented hands of our artists Kezban Sayar Yağız, Nadiye Gezmiş, Rachel Mollman, and Sema Niğdeli, and I extend my warmest congratulations to Osman Erol and Almıla Çiftçi for their scientific contributions.
Of course, we are not finished yet. We are working hard to complete the remaining illustrations — and it is not just this genus, but the entire 3rd volume, that is on the verge of completion.
Many field trips over the past few years have brought back live specimens, which our artists then illustrated in watercolour. In fact, a good number of our earlier illustrations were completed using specimens from the Albert Heilbronn Botanical Garden which, while it was still held by Istanbul University, housed one of the world’s largest living collections of crocuses. However, obtaining live specimens of many rare and ephemeral plants is far from straightforward, and so a considerable number of our technical drawings are being prepared from pressed herbarium specimens instead. This is precisely what has brought Flora illustrator Rachel and me — in my role as art editor — to the herbarium at IPK Gatersleben (Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Research, Germany), where the type specimens for several of our outstanding taxa are held.
I am accustomed to working from living plant material, so this visit was something of a departure: I set off to observe and illustrate dried specimens that had been collected, pressed, and preserved years ago under the exacting conditions of a great library of plant material. Working in a herbarium filled with countless dried specimens is an entirely different experience from fieldwork. There is a strange stillness to it, and a pleasant smell. With a living plant, you see its truest form directly. With a dried and pressed specimen, the work becomes something closer to solving a puzzle — drawing all parts with millimetric accuracy, examining them under a microscope where necessary, and re-imagining the three-dimensional living form of a plant that has been reduced to two dimensions. It is difficult, but it can be enormously enjoyable. That puzzle-solving quality is precisely the joy Rachel and I have found during our ten-day stay.
Beyond the herbarium work, we have been enjoying some peace and quiet in the small town of Gatersleben. Surrounded on all sides by the research fields and glasshouses of IPK, this is a very different kind of green environment from the mountains and forests of a field trip. We have also had the pleasure of meeting several researchers and learning about the work being carried out here.
During our time at IPK, we have completed drawings of the following taxa for Illustrated Flora of Turkey, Volume 3: C. schneideri, C. romuleoides, C. mediotauricus, C. fauseri, C. abracteolus, C. berytius, C. kangalensis, C. ponticus, C. tauri, C. yatagensis, C. stevensii, C. ionopharynx, C. akkayensis, C. incognitus, C. caelestis and C. mersinensis.
Beyond the crocuses, illustrations of orchids, irises, and many other complex geophytes have also been completed for this volume. We are very close to being able to announce the completion of Volume 3 — and it is not only Volume 3; illustrations for twelve other ongoing volumes are being prepared in parallel. In the meantime, here is some further good news:
Illustrated Flora of Turkey — also part of World Flora Online (www.worldfloraonline.org) — is now live in its own web edition!
