Guest Post from Jasmine Shadrack 'on transcribing'

Dr Jasmine Hazel Shadrack

Dr Alexander Anderson’s Plant Catalogue really is a thing of beauty. Not only does it do an excellent job of documenting all the plants, seeds, trees and shrubs that came to him, or by him, at the garden, but he also gifted us with a Latin and English description of as many as he could.

His care and attention of the Botanical Garden is also sewn into every word of the catalogue. Describing the ‘inhabitants’ as elegant, beautiful, handsome, sometimes curious or troublesome, shows contemporary audiences the breadth of his knowledge, the fastidiousness of his nature, and his genuine love of botany.

He always, where he could, made notes on who and where various plants and seeds came from. Sometimes it was a Mr William Hamilton of Philadelphia, a Mrs Parry from Barbados, or Mr Lockhead in Grenada who would send plants or seeds, and occasionally seeds arrived from His Majesty’s Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew or were brought over by Captain Bligh.

Oftentimes though, it was Anderson himself who went adventuring and found various examples to bring back to his garden and he always documented whether the plants were thriving or whether they had perished on their journeys. Dr Anderson used indigenous and enslaved African peoples to help with his plant hunting expeditions, and enslaved labour helped in his garden. Therefore, their hidden work and efforts must be acknowledged.

I have had the pleasure of transcribing some of his plant catalogue; notably the plants he listed as Ornamentals. And from my work, it is evident to me that Anderson took great pride in his work and that it stands not only as a testament to Eighteenth Century history, botany, and ecology, but also as a kind of love letter, from Dr Anderson to the future generations who would have the honour of reading his work.

Extract from plant catalogue (an example of what was transcribed)