This is not the first fern I have painted from the flora of Chile. I also illustrated Blechnum chilensis (2012), Lophosoria quadripinnata (2014) and Blechnum arcuatum (2015) for the book project Woods and Forests of Chile. Lophosoria quadripinnata was another giant fern, and it was that illustration which opened the door to this recently completed work — Thyrsopteris elegans.
Ever since 2014, when I finished the L. quadripinnata, David and Sally Rae had wanted to commission a large fern illustration on a similar scale. Illustrating at such dimensions is a serious commitment, and I wasn't ready at the time. But in January 2020, during a visit to Edinburgh, we discussed it again — and I said yes. The illustration was completed approximately seven months later.
After visiting the glasshouses at RBGE together, we chose this species, which has a remarkable story of its own. Martin Gardner — who led the Woods and Forests of Chile book project and is an expert on Chilean flora and much else besides — wrote to me about the history of the very plant I was about to illustrate:
In 1830, the intrepid Italian naturalist Carlo Bertero collected this remarkable fern from a small group of islands some 300 miles off the coast of Chile known as the Juan Fernández Islands. The islands are famous for their plant life, especially their ferns — many of which, including Thyrsopteris elegans, grow nowhere else in the world. These islands are also celebrated as the inspiration for Daniel Defoe's 1719 novel Robinson Crusoe, which drew on the experiences of the Scotsman Alexander Selkirk, who was marooned on one of the islands. That island was subsequently named after Selkirk, and today the archipelago is known as the Robinson Crusoe Islands. Seventy percent of the plant species growing on these islands are endemic, but like many island floras, they face serious threat from introduced species. Thyrsopteris elegans was brought into cultivation in the mid-1800s through Glasgow Botanic Garden, which gifted plants to RBG Edinburgh in the 1970s. The specimen growing in Edinburgh's Fern House is one of the tallest in cultivation — and the knowledge gained from propagating and cultivating this plant will, it is hoped, contribute to the conservation of this species in the remarkable but fragile Robinson Crusoe Islands.
— Martin Gardner
I began work on this species in my usual spot on the top floor of the RBGE Herbarium. Preparing the studies took around two to three weeks, during which I gathered enough information about everything I wanted to include in the composition — as well as a rough idea of how it might all come together. That composition would prove to be the most challenging aspect of the entire illustration, though I wasn't fully aware of that yet. What I did know was that, whatever happened, this was going to take a very long time.
Back in my studio, I was ready to throw myself into the work — but I couldn't move quickly, because settling on a final composition alone took weeks. The subject was too complex to feel certain, and even once I had declared it finished, I wasn't entirely sure how it would read once painted. At some point I simply had to stop adjusting and commit.
From that point on, the remaining months passed in slow, careful painting. In the end, I managed to complete the piece just in time for my solo exhibition — and as I write this, it is currently on display. I was delighted to be able to show this work before handing it over to David and Sally Rae.
I prepared a short video about the exhibition, including one focused on this remarkable species. You can watch it on this page or on YouTube.
