To many people our project, Beckler's Botanical Bounty, is exciting, but they often ask where the idea for the project came from. Bev Wood has contributed this post to explain.
The Burke
and Wills 150th Anniversary celebrations brought together many
people with a keen interest in the Victorian exploring expedition (VEE). The complex story and its many facets
continues to create interest, investigation and study. It brings so many aspects of life,
art and science into play such as surveying, botany, zoology, the weather, the stars,
health, anthropology, art, survival, food, money, politics and relationships.
The Burke
and Wills Historical Society (http://www.burkeandwills.org/) came into being in 2003, when 35
enthousiasts met in Cloncurry to discuss their mutual interests. The other organisations with a
particular interest in developing interpretation of the VEE are the Royal
Society of Victoria (who organised the VEE in the first place) (http://www.burkeandwills.org/) and the State Library of Victoria (keeper of most
of the records) (http://burkeandwills.slv.vic.gov.au/).
Menindie
was the small settlement on the Darling River (in south-west New South Wales)
where Burke and Wills slept in a bed for the last time, before taking off
overland for Coopers’ Creek.
Burke was impatient, the expedition was already behind time. He halved the expedition and left the
Supply Party behind at Menindie (October 19, 1860) with most of the expeditions
supplies (food, drugs, camping equipment, camels and horses, and so on).
This group subsequently
moved to camp on Pamameroo Creek about 10km away. It took them a long time (three months) to re-organise
themselves and follow Burke, by which time it was the height of summer and a
severe drought.
Although Dr
Beckler was a German Medical Doctor, he had been appointed in Melbourne as one
of the VEE Expedition Officers (Scientific Observers’ Botanical Observer). Unhappy with Burke’s leadership, he resigned
at Menindie in the middle of October 1860. Burke asked him to remain with the Supply Party to take care
of the stores and the remaining animals until a replacement could be found.
In the
three months he was in the area with the Supply Party (until January 26th,
1861) he undertook two expeditions.
One was the round trip rescue of two men from death at Duroadoo on the
way to Coopers’ Creek. The second
was the exploration of the nearby Scrope’s Range where he collected hundreds of
new plants (taxa) which had not been seen before. He was passionate about identifying and collecting
plants and sent hundreds of them back to Dr Ferdinand Mueller, Director of the
National Herbarium of Victoria in Melbourne.
There these
plants remain stored in dried, pressed and catalogued form – a very important
national treasure which belongs to us all. Beckler also completed some landscape drawings and paintings
in the general area, and collected 120 new specimens of plants around Menindie
itself, which I will refer to as Beckler’s List. This is where our group known as Beckler’s Botanical Bounty
comes in.
In 2009,
the well known Melbourne Botanical Artist and teacher - Mali Moir (http://malimoir.com.au/ arranged an excursion to the National Herbarium of Victoria for
the Botanical Illustrators group at the Royal Botanical Gardens. As one of the students - Bev Wood -
was keen to see some of the plants from the 1860 collections associated with
the VEE, this was kindly arranged by the Collections Manager – Dr Pina Milne. .
Some of the
VEE plants were on display for our visit. Afterwards, we (Mali Moir and Bev Wood) determined
that we would try to join the 2010 Burke and Wills 150th
celebrations in Menindie with an interest in “growing” our experience in
botanical illustration up there somehow.
In searching
for more purpose other than the painting of the local wild flowers, Mali was
made aware of Dr Hermann Beckler’s role in the VEE by Museum Victoria curator
John Kean, who advised ‘look at Beckler, he’s your man’.
On these
expeditions we have been joined by some local Menindee people, along with
botanists, historians, geologists and film makers. We need their assistance as it is a real challenge for us
“City slickers” to bumble around the bush to find each plant again, let alone
illustrate and press them and find a week and more in our busy lives every year
to do it!!
Yet we have
undertaken such a privileged endeavour for four years now, and we just love
it. As it has for thousands of
other Australians, the story of the VEE continues to fascinate us and we now
feel confident that we are contributing to its legacy in a very tangible
way.
In the bush
with repeated visits, we are learning heaps about the context of Botanical
Illustration. We are learning
about where particular plants grow, the effect of drought and other weather
conditions, and the use of the plants by the indigenous people. We are learning to illustrate the
grasses, seeds, flowers, herbs, feathers, sticks and stones and bones gathered
from the bush and the rivers and creeks by our own hands.
It gives us
a real sense of connection to the specimens and the story of the VEE. But best of all it gives us a chance to
be in "country” and explore our own land and its naturally growing plants in a
very intimate way.
We are
often asked what we are going to do with our paintings and drawings (about 40
to date), and we are looking for an opportunity to exhibit them all at
once. In the meantime, it is our
personal and collective journeys in this wide brown land and the intimate
observation of some of its plants in their own environment which really counts
the most.
Beverley
Wood
