Self-Guided Trail: Seeds of Change: Self-Guided Tour
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Banksia Serrata or the saw-tooth banksia inhabits a wide-ranging habitat across Australia from Tasmania to in the south to Maryborough, Queensland and is known by a variety of names across different Aboriginal language groups in Australia. When depictions of this banksia were spread through colonial scientific and commercial networks, it was given many more. Lewin inscribed his watercolour with two; Banksia serrata and Embothrium speciosissimum. The first belongs to the Linnaean system of nomenclature while the second recorded a now obsolete taxonomic classification. Other names, including ‘Old Man Banksia’, used by early colonists for the deeply gnarled appearance of its trunk and branches, and ‘honeysuckle’, add further layers to the plant’s history. English naturalist John Lewin arrived in Sydney in 1800 intent on studying and recording the flora and fauna of New South Wales and is often considered today to be the first official artist of the colony. Lewin’s early portraits of Australian flora offer us insight into how the Australian landscape was seen and used in colonial Australia.