Phase 1b

The need to identify, classify and record the plants encountered during colonial expansion consolidated botany as a distinct science and necessitated the development of botanical illustration as a scientific tool. This symbiotic relationship between botany and colonialism is echoed in our use of language today; the term ‘native’ is used to describe both plants and people. Mahmood Mamdani writes “native is the creation of the colonial state... pinned down, localized, thrown out of civilization as an outcast, confined to custom, and then defined as its product” (Mamdani, 2012, pp.2-3). The oxymoronic nature of language and classification is no better encapsulated by the ‘non-native’ species Himalayan Balsam. Much maligned by contemporary British conservationists for its invasiveness and propensity to outcompete native plants, this species was introduced to the UK in 1839 by Dr. Royle of Kew Gardens (Day, 2015) as an ornamental garden plant, and was excitedly studied by some of the scientific giants of 19th century botany (University of Cambridge, below).

The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew was established to harbour the plethora of specimens brought back from colonial expeditions, a physical monument to the native/non-native paradigm that plagues conservation today. Ironically, when I visited Kew’s sister gardens, Wakehurst, an information panel dedicated to remonstrating Himalayan Balsam’s invasiveness, failed to mention the circumstances of its introduction, instead imploring visitors to "Look out for aliens!".

To refer to this plant by its Latin name, Impatiens glandulifera, further belies the coloniality of botanical science. The binomial nomenclature system of classification that is still in use today was conceived by the Swedish botanist, Carl Linnaeus, in his work 'Species Plantarum' published in 1753. In establishing a Euro-centric taxonomic naming system, the traditional names (deemed “barbarous” by Linnaeus (quoted in Schiebinger, 2004, p.200)) and their corresponding ecologies, stories, histories and cultural uses were excluded from scientific literature. Schiebinger notes that “names became technical reference tools—said to be simple tags or neutral designators” (Schiebinger, 2004, pp.197-8). This neutrality falls short, however, when one observes Linnaeus’ predication that Latin names should reflect the names of great botanists; “it is necessary for every Botanist to treasure the history of the science which he is passing on, and at the same time to be familiar with all botanical writers and their names.” (Linnaeus quoted in Schiebinger, 2004, p.203). Thus, in addition to the systematic erasure of plants and their entangled cultural-ecological relations, binomial nomenclature inscribed a history of white European men onto the names of plants, immortalising “the story of elite European botany” (Schiebinger, 2004, p.203).

Similarly, I argue that botanical illustration visually replicates this erasure. The images reduce plants to “technical reference tools”(Schiebinger, 2004, pp.197-8), visual manifestations of their Latin names. By drawing plants in accordance with Western scientific rigour and accuracy and then pairing these images with their Latin names, botanical illustration made plants legible to Western science. In 'Seeing Like a State'(1999) James C. Scott writes “legibility is a condition of manipulation” (Scott, 1999, p.183); this botanical legibility was intended to serve in the colonial exploitation of people and plants.

In rendering plants as objects with labels, they also became commodities. In 'Ways of Seeing'(1972), John Berger writes of oil painting:

“Oil painting did to appearances what capital did to social relations. It reduced everything to the equality of objects. Everything became exchangeable because everything became a commodity.” (Berger, 1972, p.87).

This might also be applied in the context of botanical illustration, particularly as the economic need to identify and cultivate profitable plants was critical to the success of the colonial and imperial powers.

Once identified, profitable plants were cultivated in vast monocultural plantations, relying on the forced labour of enslaved peoples. Complex, diverse ecosystems became exchangeable with monocultural plantations. Plants and animals that threatened the productivity of the ‘valuable’ plants were categorised as ‘weeds’ or ‘pests’, distinctions that enabled the development of the multibillion-dollar pesticide and herbicide industries reaping vast profits (and ecological collapse) to this day. Incidentally, many of the chemicals we now employ as pesticides and herbicides were developed by Nazi scientists as chemical weapons during the 1930s and ‘40s (Kiss the Ground, 2020).

Having established the colonial conditions that gave rise to botanical illustration as a scientific tool, we call upon another compost-dwelling decomposer, the springtail Michel Foucault (see above). In ‘Society Must Be Defended’ (2003) he asks:

“What types of knowledge are you trying to disqualify when you say that you are a science? What speaking subject, what discursive subject, what subject of experience and knowledge are you trying to minorize when you begin to say: ‘I speak this discourse, I am speaking a scientific discourse, and I am a scientist.’” (Foucault, 2003, p.10).

To begin to answer these questions, let us observe binomial nomenclature in its natural habitat. Unless you are schooled in the esteemed language of botany, or you have eaten the glossary for breakfast, much of the text is incomprehensible. It is precise, highly technical and strictly objective and this too is reflected in the visual language of the illustrations. The plants are removed from any ecological entanglements. Instead, they appear as obliging objects floating in white space on the page. Dressed in the prestigious clothes of scientific knowledge, the images are presented to the viewer as unnegotiable fact, definitive as full stops.

In her thesis, Stephanie Black refers to the “gaps” in illustration, defining them as “gaps in meaning, both semantic and spatial (on the page)”, creating a space in which “the viewer has to do some work in order to make communication meaningful through their personal contribution” (Black, 2014, pp.8-9).

Inviting her into our compost heap, we might ask: what sort of gaps might we find ourselves occupying in viewing botanical illustration?

I would argue that traditional botanical illustration leaves no such gaps. By presenting themselves as definitive scientific fact, there is no space and no need for personal contribution, questioning or curiosity. Any breakdown in meaningful communication is conferred to a lack of intelligence on the part of the viewer.

Similarly, any gap that does exist serves only to prove the viewer’s failure to achieve the required levels of scientific erudition. Coupled with the fact that Collins Wildflower Guide costs £30, there is no public right of way on 92% of English land (Right to Roam Campaign, n.d.), white children are twice as likely to visit the countryside (including national parks, nature reserves and SSSIs) than children from Black, Asian and other ethnic minority backgrounds (Natural England, 2019, p.15) and 2.7 million people in England have no green space within 0.5 miles of their homes (Miles, ed., 2022, p.108), 'you can’t see/identify/connect with plants if you haven’t botany', begins to morph from innocuous pun into a blithe statement on the exclusivity of knowledge and access to nature.

By the legibility of botanical illustration relying on the viewer’s scientific literacy and ability to reason, we have run into another manifestation of the hierarchical dualisms that we first encountered with Plato, the duality of mind and body. The mind is considered the site of reason and rationality: “For such a man [refusing to reason…], as such, is seen already to be no better than a mere vegetable” (Aristotle's Metaphysics 1006a 12 – 15, in Marder, 2013 p.77), whereas the body is considered the site of irrational passion and inferior perception- no better, after all, than a mere vegetable.

This distinction between mind and body not only sets human above plant, but also the superiority of the mind over bodily perception. Michael Marder explains how “in the history of Western philosophy …you have the hierarchy of the senses...with touch being the most material of the senses and the least, as it were, theoretical, precisely because in order to touch a thing, we have to diminish our distance from it- we have to be almost contiguous to that which we touch.” (Marder, 2021).
Marder contrasts this with the senses of hearing and vision which, being the primary instruments of language, are the most theoretical “and which entail for their good function, separation from the object which is to be heard or to be seen.” (Marder, 2021).

“Once we start talking…about the body and about how we live in our bodies,” writes bell hooks, “we’re automatically challenging the way power has orchestrated itself in [a] particular space. The person who is most powerful has the privilege of denying their body” (hooks, 1994, pp.136-7). We might add that the person who is most powerful also has the privilege of denying others’ bodies, both those of humans and other species. This denial of bodily perception and autonomy is evident throughout contemporary and historical systems of oppression and social injustices.

For example, the aforementioned hierarchy of the senses immediately delegitimises those with sensory and/or learning differences, such as Disabled and Neurodiverse folk. Likewise, the censoring of bodily emotion as a way of connecting and understanding, described by Audre Lorde as “the erotic” (Lorde, 1984) has been a key mechanism in the oppression of women and LGBTQ+ communities.

Before we continue our decompositional meanders, we return briefly to Foucault and his point of distinguishing between “the contents, methods, or concepts of a science” and the “centralizing power-effects that are bound up with the intitutionalization and workings of any scientific discourse organised in a society such as ours” (Foucault, 2003, p.9). This is important to hold in mind (and/or compost heap) as the systemic and structural oppression that science is tied up with does not render any positive impacts of scientific research (of which there are many) obsolete. Composting shows us that, above (or below) all, it is imperative to move beyond binaries such as good/bad or right/wrong, and instead gingerly inhabit the complexities and nuances, creating space to observe their relationships, interactions, and contradictions.

This is a highly non-exhaustive peer into the hegemonic workings upon which botanical illustration, scientific traditions and many other areas of Western society actively resides. The reader is gently reminded that the decompositional process is not confined solely to this particular compost heap, and they are encouraged to undertake their own critical composting moving forwards (or sideways or backwards).