LANKESTERIANA


 The first part was published in May 1817, the
last part of volume 20 was distributed in December
1833. Each month one part with ten completely
hand-coloured plates was published for five
shillings, in parallel a cheaper version with only
partially coloured plates was sold for two shillings
and six dimes. The twenty volumes included a total
number of 2000 plates, 131 of them were orchids,
many of them created by George Loddiges,
himself. A number of drawings originated from
Edward William Cooke and Jane Loddiges. Jane
was the daughter of Conrad Loddiges (and sister of
George) and E. W. Cooke was her husband. Edward
William Cooke was a landscape and marine painter,
born in 1811 in Pentonville, London. The drawings
made by E. W. Cook and Jane Loddiges,together
with those from George Loddiges himself, and
other involved artists like T. Boys, Miss Rebello,
W. Miller, P Heath and J. P Heath were engraved
by George Cooke, father of E.W.Cooke, printed
and then coloured by different artists. George
Cooke was born 1781 in London and was a line-
engraver by profession. The originals from E. W.
Cooke and Jane Loddiges were offered in 1929
by their grandson to the Bombay Natural History
Society. The originals of all drawings are kept
today in the collection of the British Museum. In
a letter of October 1879, E. W. Cooke stated that
all 2000 engraved copper plates were stolen by one
of Loddiges' men from his library in the garden.
The exact publication dates of all 2000 plates
between May 1817 (Vol. 1, fasc. 1, t. 1 10) and
December 1833 (Vol. 20, fasc. 10, t. 1991 2000)
are published in Stafleu in Taxonomic Literature
and by Garay in the journal Taxon (1969).
 The plates are almost perfect, and the colour reflects
reality and is not unlike many later similar publications
like Flore des Serres or Lindenia exaggerated. The
very first plate published in 1817 was an orchid:
Goodyera pubescens (Fig. 4, 5), described in 1813
by Robert Brown. Loddiges received it much earlier
from J. and W Bartram and had it since about 1785 in
cultivation. Kew received it from the Duke of Kent in
1802. As Loddiges wrote: "The plant is with difficulty
cultivated -- loves a shady situation, and rich bog earth.
Our specimen flowered in September." The original
drawing was made by George Loddiges himself.

LANKESTERIANA8(2), August 2008. 0 Unversidad de Costa Rica, 2008.


FIGURE 6. Ficus setacea, from Botanical Cabinet, Vol. 12.

 As explained above, only 131 plates of the 2000
were orchids, and it is interesting to see that most of
them represent species that are not too difficult to
transport from their home to England and rather easy
of culture, or, more honestly, hard to kill. Cultivation
of orchids during Loddiges' time was rather different
from today's ideas about cultivation and only really
tough plants could survive. This is not the place to
write much about plants other than orchids, but I would
like to show at least a few examples, Ficus setacea (t.
1138) from vol. 12 (Fig. 6) after a drawing by T. Boys
and IP% %itiora herbertiana (Fig. 7) from vol. 14, both
are very good examples to document the high quality
of the drawings.
 Plate 585 from 1822 takes a very special place in
the whole series, it is Cypripedium venustum (Fig.
8). The very first species of the genus Paphiopedilum
was described and illustrated by John Sims only
two years earlier in Curtis Botanical Magazine as
Cypripedium venustum. We don't know who the
artist of this plant was, but under the impression of
the strange, beautiful plant and flower, Loddiges
wrote: "The view of such pleasing and astonishing