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Richard Owen knew that he was making a place for a museum of natural history in all of its guises, and plants are part of natural history which, I think, kind of makes the building, because it' s the one place in this building where plants are the element of decoration as opposed to just being the background for animals. We don' t really know very much about the ceiling because most of the documentation about it has either been lost or never existed. We don' t know who decided what plants to put here, we don' t know why the plants were chosen to put on the ceiling, so it' s a great mystery. Particularly puzzling are these unlabelled panels, known as the archaic panels. I would come into the museum early in the morning and I would look up at the ceiling with binoculars. I think people who came in thought I was a little bit crazy. Some of the archaic panels are really easy to identify their common garden plants, a lily, for example, but some of them are a bit more difficult, and there are some that really stumped me, I just couldn' t figure out what they were. And the other thing we never knew was where these images had come from. And I was leafing through a book called Plantae Asiaticae Rariores, which was published in the 1830s by Nathaniel Wallich, and I came across one and I thought, " That' s it, that' s the plant I can' t figure out what it was," and I realised that many of the images on the ceiling had actually been copied from this particular book. |
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lǐ chá dé ōu wén zhī dào tā yào jiàn zào de shì yī zuò quán miàn zhǎn xiàn zì rán lì shǐ de bó wù guǎn, ér zhí wù shì zì rán lì shǐ de yī bù fen, zhèng shì tā shǐ de zhè chuáng jiàn zhù biàn de wán zhěng. yīn wèi zài cǐ chù, zhí wù chéng le zhuāng shì de hé xīn, ér bù jǐn jǐn shì wèi dòng wù chōng dāng bèi jǐng. wǒ men duì dà tīng tiān huā bǎn zhī zhī shén shǎo, yīn wèi guān yú tiān huā bǎn de dà duō jì zǎi wén jiàn, yǐ jīng yì shī huò zhě bìng bù cún zài, shì shuí xuǎn dìng huà zhōng zhí wù de zhǒng lèi. wèi hé yào yòng zhèi xiē zhí wù lái zhuāng shì tiān huā bǎn, wǒ men quán dōu bù dé ér zhī. zhè shì yí gè hóng dà de mí tuán, yóu qí lìng rén fèi jiě de shì zhèi xiē méi yǒu biāo qiān de xiāng bǎn, tā men bèi chēng wéi" gǔ xiāng bǎn". wǒ huì zài qīng zǎo lái dào bó wù guǎn, yòng shuāng mù wàng yuǎn jìng guān kàn tiān huā bǎn. wǒ xiǎng zǒu jìn lái de rén huì jué de wǒ shì gè fēng zi, yī bù fen" gǔ xiāng bǎn" hěn róng yì jiàn bié, tā men shì pǔ tōng de huā yuán zhí wù, bǐ rú shuō bǎi hé, dàn lìng yī xiē zé bù yì jiàn bié. qí zhōng yī xiē què shí nán zhù le wǒ, wǒ wú fǎ biàn bié chū tā men shì shén me zhí wù, zhèi xiē tú huà de lái yuán, wǒ men yě wú cóng dé zhī. wǒ fān yuè nà sà ní ěr wǎ lì chí 19 shì jì 30 nián dài chū bǎn de, yà zhōu zhēn xī zhí wù shí kàn dào le yī zhū zhí wù, xiǎng dào" jiù shì tā, zhè jiù shì wǒ wú fǎ biàn rèn de zhí wù". ér hòu wǒ fā xiàn hěn duō tiān huā bǎn shàng de tú piàn, jiù shì lín mó zhè běn shū ér lái de. |