Eucalyptus · The Medicine Chest

Title

Eucalyptus

Is Part Of

Biological Sciences See all items with this value

History See all items with this value

African Studies See all items with this value

Fine Art See all items with this value

Centre for Curating the Archive See all items with this value

Pulmonology See all items with this value

Description

"The plants [dislayed in this cabinet] were bought from the Adderley Street flower market in central Cape Town and are used by the sellers for medicinal purposes to treat chest and respiratory problems, with the leaves of the eucalyptus added to a bath and those of the protea infused in hot water and drunk as a broth. The flower sellers trading in Trafalgar Place and along Adderley Street have been doing so since at least the mid-1880s but became viewed as threats to the local flora by the European settlers at about the same time the medicine chest was first introduced to the city at the beginning of the 20th century. The settlers initially preferred to cultivate plants imported from their home countries to indigenous varieties, introducing many species to South Africa for nostalgic or practical reasons (subsequently problematic for local biodiversity) (Van Sittert 2002: 103). In the wake of emerging white nationalism in the 1890s, interest in indigenous plants gained momentum and was deployed to create a sense of belonging to the ‘foreign’ land (Boehi 2013: 133). A botanical discourse was mobilised to underscore ideas about identity and belonging, such as ‘roots’ and ‘ideas of rootedness’, and laws regulating flower picking (which usually occurred on the mountain) were passed in this period and were secured by the Wild Flower Protections Act in 1905 and an amendment thereto in 1908 (Boehi 2013: 133)"(Liebenberg 2021: 275).

Curriculum

Philosophia Botanica See all items with this value

Creator

Nina Liebenberg See all items with this value

Date Created

2018

Source

Chest: a botanical ecology

Resonances

Chest: a botanical ecology See all items with this value

South African Museum See all items with this value

eucalyptus See all items with this value

bath See all items with this value

Adderley Street flower sellers See all items with this value

asthma See all items with this value

lungs See all items with this value

plant See all items with this value

biodiversity See all items with this value

roots See all items with this value

identity See all items with this value

colonialism See all items with this value

nostalgia See all items with this value

flowers See all items with this value

law See all items with this value

indigenous See all items with this value

medicine chest See all items with this value

Type

Objects

Contributor

Nina Liebenberg

Item sets

99_LBNNIN001

Philosophia Botanica

Site pages

Materials