ILLUSTRATED FLORA OF EAST TEXAS - Brit - Botanical Research ...

266 INTRODUCTION/BOTANICAL ART IN EAST TEXAS
FIG. 166/ PAINTING OF A COLLECTION OF TEXAS WILDFLOWERS BY JANE MOLPUS.USED WITH PERMISSION OF THE ARTIST.
(e.g., Watson 1975, 2003), to her political involvement with the Big Thicket Association
for the creation of a federal preserve, and her work restoring a portion of the Thicket on
the Watson Pinelands Preserve. Ms. Watson is also a prolific artist, having produced
numerous paintings featuring plant subjects from the Big Thicket (Fig. 167). The sale of
her art helps support the preserve. The frontispiece to the taxonomic treatments of this
volume, depicting Cypripedium kentuckiense, (southern lady’s-slipper; Orchidaceae; page
320), is from a painting by Watson, published here for the first time.
ELIZA GRIFFIN JOHNSTON (1821-1896) (see Fig. 168), who lived and worked in Texas during
the 1840s and 1850s, produced the earliest known paintings of Texas wildflowers by a
Texas artist. Originally given as a gift to her husband, her collection was first published
in 1972 (Johnston 1972), as was her biography (Mayhall 1972). She was the wife
of General Albert Sidney Johnston, who served in the armies of Texas, the U.S., and the
Confederacy, and she traveled extensively with him both in Texas and elsewhere in the
U.S. Her early art of Texas plants influenced various future artists, including Ruth
Andersson May.