A rare and decorative exotic botanical print of the Tender Wild Jack, labeled in Latin, Malayalam, Arabic, and Sanskrit. The twelve volume Hortus Malabaricus (Garden of Malabar) was published between 1678 and 1703 as a result of collaboration between the former governor of Malabar, local Ayuverdic doctors, physicians, botanists, translators and artisans from India and the Netherlands. It is the first comprehensive record of the plant wealth of India and the medicinal uses of those plants.
Pajanelia, sometimes known in English as tender wild jack, can be most commonly found within the deciduous and semi-evergreen mountainous rainforests of India, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra and Borneo, and up to 1000m above sea level. It is often spotted alongside rivers or within forests adjacent to the coast and is occasionally found lonesome in the plains. Pajanelia is used in parts of Malaysia, where it is commonly planted as stakes for hedges along with rice fields and is also planted as a support tree in pepper plantations. The timber is suitable for woodworking purposes, such as building doors, wall panelling, domestic flooring, veneer and plywood, due to it being very hard and close-grained. In conjunction with this, the wood has been used by the native Andamanese, who use the wood for house building, planking and canoe building. Pajanelia also has been used within traditional south Asian medicine. It may be resistant to white ant attacks and is pollinated by various species of bats. Pajanelia is sometimes known in English as tender wild jack or pajanelia, in Malayalam as azhantha or pajneli, in Kannada as alangi and in Tamil as aranthal, is a monotypic genus of evergreen or briefly deciduous flowering tree in the family Bignoniaceae which contains a single species, Pajanelia longifolia. The species epithet longifolia is of Latin origin and means long leaves.
The publication of the twelve volumes of Hortus Malabaricus (Garden of Malabar) is believed to be the earliest comprehensive published work on the flora of Asia and the tropics. The volumes were published between 1678 and 1703 and was a product of the collaboration of the former governor of Malabar, Hendrik van Rheede, and a large number of Ayuverdic doctors, physicians, professors of medicine and botany, translators and artisans from India and the Netherlands. Originally written in Latin, the approximately 700 copper plate engravings include the names of the plants in four languages (Latin, Sanskrit, Arabic, and Malayalam).
It is of great importance today as a rare record of the plant wealth of Kerala (India) and medicinal uses of those plants. Unlike many 17th century documents, the local contributors of this knowledge – the vaidyas (“healers”) Itty Achudan, Ranga Bhat, Appu Bhat, Vinayaka Pandit – do not remain unnamed, but instead have contributed sworn and signed statements of their collaboration. Indeed the ethno-medical information presented in this work was extracted from the palm leaf manuscripts of Achudan.
During the 16th century, the quality of the serious study of plants in Europe was given a huge impetus by Lucca Ghini’s invention of the ‘herbarium method’: the pressing of plants between two sheets of paper so that they could be preserved in dry form. Carolus Clusius, botanists and prefect of the Leiden Hortus botanicus, recognised the opportunity presented by the formation of the Dutch East Indies company (VOC) and recent advances in the preservations of plants to expand the plant collection of the Hortus and existing knowledge of the plant world. Apart from Clusius’ early influence, the VOC also had it in their interest to care for the health of their employees in the tropics. Recognizing the value of indigenous medicinal plants for the treatment of tropical diseases, more efforts were placed on collecting and documenting such information.
Hendrik Adriaan van Rheede tot Drakenstein (1636-1691) was botanist, naturalist, and a colonial administrator of the Dutch East India Company. He also served as the governor of Dutch Malabar between 1669 and 1676. He employed 25 people to create the work and described 740 plants of the region.
Title on plate: Pajaneli. Lat.
Tender Wild Jack or Pajanelia Longifolia
Hand Colored copperplate engraving, cleaned and layed on Japanese paper for long term protection.
