306 International Seminar on "Multidisciplinary Approaches in Angiosperm Systematics" NOVEL METHOD OF MAKING BOTANICAL ILLUSTRATIONS WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO INDIAN ORCHIDS D. K. Agrawala, H. J. Chowdhery, C. M. Sabapathy, Avishek Bhattacharjee and Suptotthita Choudhury Abstract During the study of Indian Orchidaceae, a novel method of making plant illustrations has been evolved. The methodology and its merits are discussed in detail in the present paper. Key words : Botanical illustration, Indian Orchidaceae, Novel method, Taxonomic problems. Introduction Botanical illustration is an integral part of plant taxonomy which provides a clear, unambiguous image and act as an important tool in the identification of a species. These illustrations often accompany the botanical descriptions of taxa in various publications. It is important that the persons who is making an illustration should have a clear understanding of plant morphology, floral structure and he should have access to the specimens (preferably a living one) from which the illustration is intended to be drawn. The conventional and most popular method of making a botanical illustration is by line drawing in black and white. During earlier days many artists were using natural dyes to colour their illustrations in order to provide more accurate information about the colour of flower and other significant plant parts. During the study on Indian Orchidaceae as a part of 'Flora of India Project' and the 'All India Coordinated Project on Orchidaceae', the authors were faced with difficulties in the identification of a large number of orchid specimens collected by them or the herbarium specimens deposited in many herbaria. The illustrations presently available for those species in different publications have added to the confusion and magnified the problem. This is mainly due to poor quality in line drawings and ambiguity between the drawings made by different artists / botanists, descriptions and the specimens from which the drawing was made. Moreover, the complex structure of an orchid flower is very difficult to study in pressed and preserved old herbarium specimens. This led the present authors to device a method, which can help to prepare an illustration which is like the mirror image of the specimen, size of individual figures are proportionate to a scale and there is no chance of manual manipulation. The said method is more suitable to live specimens and these can be preserved and used as a virtual representative of the corresponding specimen. In the present paper this new method of making botanical illustration is described with a discussion on the problems faced with earlier published illustrations. The history of botanical illustrations in India The history of botanical illustrations in India dates back to Von Rheede's Hortus Malabaricus (1678 - 1693) containing illustrated account of 742 plants from south India. This contained 17 orchid species known at that time. In the post-Linnean period, significant illustrative accounts on Indian plants including orchids are provided by W. J. Hooker (1821; 1823 -1827; 1849-1857); Lindley(1825-1847;1837-1841); Bauer and Lindley(1830-1838);Roxburgh(1795-1820; 1814; 1832); Wallich (1824-1826; 1829-1832); Royle (1833-1840); Griffith (1847-1854); Wight (1831-1832; 1838-1853; 1840-1850; 1846-1851); RGReichenbach (1854-1900); Beddome (1869-1874; 1874); J. D.Hooker (1855; 1867-1913; 1895); King and Pantling(l 898); Duthie( 1906) and different authors in Curtis's Botanical Magazine. These coloured illustrations were drawn mostly by trained artists using natural dyes or by the authors themselves. The difficulty faced with these illustrations is that the images are not proportionate to any scale and quite often not corresponding with the specimen from which they were drawn. During the present study it was noted that there is no recent consolidated illustrative account on Indian Orchid Flora is available and the available ones belong to some regional floras or