![[Unknown]](https://collection.nelsonmuseum.co.nz/records/images/xlarge/153655/cb0f31774a5dba8c41a44381e64b17e1d3f25a7c.jpg "[Unknown]")
[Unknown]
Maker and Role
Artist: Nina Jones (b.1871, d.1926)
Production date
Circa 1920
Description
Watercolour painting on rectangular sheet of brown paper, with a brown window mount, and backing. The painting is a botanical illustration of part of a plant with flowers, thought to be New Zealand Mistletoe. One branching brown stem is depicted, with alternate leaves on brown-red petioles. The leaf blades are green-yellow, oval-shaped, with smooth margins. Interspersed between the leaves in the upper half of the stems are long red flowers. Some flowers appear as long red tubes. Open flowers have long slender petals radiating out from half-way up the tube. There are leaves depicted in a wash of colours.
The painting is marked “N.J.”
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Object detail
Mount = Height x Width (mm) = 370 x 274mm
Public comments
This is definitely a beech mistletoe and almost certainly the red mistletoe Peraxilla tetrapetala. The small leaf size and flowers are consistent with this species, compared to the larger beech mistletoe species, Peraxilla colensoi (scarlet mistletoe). Flowers are represented both in bud and open. This was once common throughout beech forests in the Nelson region until possums were introduced and decimated their populations. As a consequence, this species is now nationally threatened, with a threat ranking of Nationally Vulnerable (2022).
- Shannel Courtney (Plant Ecologist, DOC) posted 11 months ago.