Red Jasmine Tree, 1719

From Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium, first published 1705 Engravings by J. Mulder, P. Sluyter (Sluiter) and D. Stoopendaal after Maria Sybilla Merian. This plate is part of a comprehensive collection comprising 17 plates. Check out other listings to view the entire series. 1964 Hoffman and Campe Verlag, Hamburg Complete production Mladinska Knjiga, Ljubljana/Yugoslavia. This 1964 official reproduction table come from the editions: Dissertation sur la génération et les transformations des insectes de Surinam, The Hague, Pierre Gosse, 1726, and Over de Voortteeling en Wonderbaerlyke Veranderingen der Surinaamsche insects, Amsterdam, Jean Frederic Bernard, 1730. CORAL TREE AND SILK MOTH The plant is Erythrina glanca, the blue-green coral tree, easily recognized as a legume by its fruits, called Koffiemama by the Surinamese Dutch because it is used as a shade tree in coffee and cocoa plantations. Both crops do not tolerate the direct rays of the tropical sun well. Erythrina is also called pallisade booms because the Indians split the logs and build huts and walls from the boards. The inflorescences are so heavy that the branches are pulled against the ground and only stand up again when the petals fall off. The ripe fruit cluster has pods like a broom and also serves this purpose among the natives. If the sheet with the pomegranate (original plate no. 9) lived in the tension of red and blue, one can speak less of tension here, one must speak of a moving fullness of life, which is expressed in green, yellow and brown along the two diagonals is formed by the branch, the other by the opposition of the two butterflies, the upper female and the lower male. The butterfly is Arsenura cassandra from the family Syssphingidae, from the family group of silk moths. This species creates interest through the molting of the caterpillars. Those that have just hatched from the egg are striped black and yellow and have thorns on the front and back. Over the course of five molts, the animals turn orange with a black spot on each limb, the thorns wither and finally disappear completely before pupation. Here, too, the author of the composition has made a sacrifice of accuracy: the caterpillar pupates in the ground or on the surface in leaves and mulch, but not at the top of the tree. (Original plate no. 11) ____________________________________ Maria Sibylla...

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