Through a Magnifying Glass (3.24609)
Date: 1944Creator: Watts, May Theilgaard
Type: Drawing
Description:Illustrations of lichens, flowers, buds, leaves, twigs, and seeds of various plants, created to accompany "Through A Magnifying Glass" article featured in Morton Arboretum Bulletin of Popular Information. Includes descriptive text next to each plant image.
Plants depicted in three sections, from left to right, top to bottom:
Section 1: There are lichens in the spruce plot,
- Pixie cups -- Cladonia chlorophaea
- British soldiers -- Cladonia cristatella
- Awl lichen -- Cladonia coniocraea
- Vernal Witch hazel -- Hamamelis vernalis
- A magnolia bud wears deep velvet
- The persistent leaves of bayberry are copper and rose underneath, set with amber globules
- Butternut buds wear camels' faces
- Birch seeds and the scales of their cones play several variations on the same theme, including European white, gray, cherry, and river
- Queen Anne's lace has design in its "bird-nest" seed heads
- Spore capsules of mosses show many patterns. This one is Funaria hygrometrica, with a seta that twists and untwists with changing humidity
- A buckeye bud may reveal a flower cluster and several leaves
Extent: 1 sheet
Fragrance and Flavor in Leaf, Bark, Twig, and Fruit (3.24626)
Date: 1943Creator: Watts, May Theilgaard
Type: Drawing
Description:Illustrations of variety of leaves, buds, plant habits and bark, created to accompany " Fragrance and Flavor in Leaf, Bark, Twig, and Fruit" article featured in Morton Arboretum Bulletin of Popular Information. Includes identifying illustrations of source trees and identifying text in pen and ink.
Divided into five sections, from top to bottom, left to right:
1) FRAGRANCE IN BRUISED LEAVES
- Sweetbriar - fragrance of green apple sauce
- Sweet shrub - scent of strawberries
- Fragrant sumac - aromatic with a trace of lemon
- Bayberry - aromatic with a hint of balsam
- Mother-of-thyme - fragrant, with a suggestion of new lumber
- Jeffrey pine - a sharp tang of orange peel
- Arbor vitae - in hot sun a smell of "wild strawberries with a hint of resin" - Wilder
- Balsam fir - aromatic and spicy
- Sweet cicely - odor of anise, or licorice
- Sassafras - "fragrance of lemon and a thousand spices" - Thoreau
- Sweet bay - a culinary fragrance reminiscent of soups and stews
- Spice-bush - smooth aroma of mingled spices
- Hay-scented fern - fragrance of new-mown hay
- Sweet fern - resinous and spicy
- Southernwood - smooth sweet fragrance
- Chaste tree - mint with a hint of spice
- Cherry birch - cool, smooth flavor of wintergreen
- Yellow birch - mild taste of wintergreen
- Black cherry - taste of bitter almond
- Slippery elm - inner bark pleasantly mucilaginous
- Juniper - a pleasant aromatic taste
- Sumac - a berry on the tongue gives a taste of "Indian lemonade"
- Balm of gilead - resinous and strongly aromatic
- Flowering quince - good to put in a pocket, or with hankerchiefs
Extent: 1 sheet
Landscape with Houses and Trees (3.24647)
Date: 20th centuryCreator: Watts, May Theilgaard
Type: Drawing
Description:Illustration of a hilly landscape with five houses, pasture, fences, farm land, a lake, a stream, a bridge, roads, a water wheel, and many trees. Trees are drawn to indicate general shape and each tree is identified. NATURE STUDY GUILD is stamped in purple on piece of board and glued at top right.
Trees depicted:
White pine -- Spruce -- Austrian pine -- Pear -- Sassafras -- Sumac -- Black willows -- Box elder --
Apple -- Red cedar -- Norway pine -- Yellow birch -- Black walnut -- Sour gum -- White cedar -- Poison sumac -- Tamarack -- White ash -- Chestnut oak -- Blue ash -- Red oak -- Beech -- Shagbark hickory -- Mockernut hickory -- Red maple -- Pignut hickory -- Wafer ash -- River birch -- Buckeye --
Shingle oak -- Bur oak -- Linden -- Cherry birch -- Shadbush -- Hill's oak -- White oak -- Sugar maple -- Black locust -- Black cherry -- Large-toothed poplar -- Cottonwood -- Waahoo -- Trembling aspen -- Witch-hazel -- Flowering dogwood -- Ironwood -- Chestnut -- Pin cherry -- Choke cherry -- Wild crab -- Wild plum -- Redbud -- Water beech -- Balm of Gilead -- Red mulberry -- Tulip tree -- Sycamore -- Bitternut hickory -- Slippery elm -- Butternut -- Swamp white -- Kentucky coffee tree -- Red ash -- Honey locust -- Hawthorne -- Lombardy poplars -- European alder -- Black ash -- Osage orange hedge -- Ailanthus -- Paw-paw -- Hackberry -- White birch -- American elm -- Catalpa -- Norway maple -- Weeping willow -- White wilow -- Pin oak -- Horse chestnut -- Mountian ash -- Pussy willow -- Fir -- Ginkgo -- Silver maple -- Scotch pine -- Silver poplar
Extent: 1 sheet