Woundwort specimen Jacob van Huysum

Botanical study of Prunella vulgaris, common name self-heal or woundwort. This plant is found throughout Europe, Asia and North America, as well as most temperate climates. Painting shows plant with green and purple leaves, and tall green stems topped with clusters of tubular purple flowers, both open and in bud.

Painting 35 from MS/109, a collection of botanical paintings by Jacob van Huysum and William Sartorius.

Inscribed in ink 'Brunella Caroliniana magno flore dilute coeruleo internodiis longissimiss. Rand.' Not signed.

A specimen of this plant was noted in 'A catalogue of the fifty plants sent from Chelsea Garden, presented to the Royal Society... 1725' by Isaac Rand, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society volume 34, issue 395 (1727). It was cultivated at Chelsea Physic Garden in London, and was one of the specimens from the yearly collection sent by the Society of Apothecaries to the Royal Society.

Jacob van Huysum (1682-1745), Dutch botanical painter, was not a Fellow of the Royal Society. He produced most of the 50 illustrations for the Historia Plantarum Rariorum (London: 1728-38) written by John Martyn FRS, and all the drawings for Philip Miller’s Catalogus Plantarum, an index of trees, shrubs, plants and flowers.