Title: Early New Zealand Botanical Art

Author: F. Bruce Sampson

Publication details: Reed Methuen, 1985, Auckland

Digital publication kindly authorised by: F. Bruce Sampson

Part of: New Zealand Texts Collection

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Early New Zealand Botanical Art

IV — Etienne Raoul

page 58

IV
Etienne Raoul

It was noted in the previous chapter that when Dumont d'Urville reached Akaroa on his last voyage, he was disappointed to learn that the British had claimed all of New Zealand. He knew that Le Comte de Paris, with about sixty French emigrants on board, was already headed for Akaroa, a venture that was sponsored by the French Nanto-Bordelaise Company. A French corvette, I'Aube, under the command of Charles Lavaud, was sent to Akaroa to protect the interests of the settlers and the French whalers in the region. It arrived at the Bay of Islands in July 1840, and after a brief stay, proceeded to Akaroa, arriving on 17 August. It remained in the vicinity of Akaroa for over a year. The surgeon of I'Aube was Etienne Fiacre Louis Raoul (1815-52), who was a keen naturalist. He made extensive collections of plants, mostly near Akaroa. When I'Aube was replaced by another corvette, I'Allier, which arrived in January 1842, Raoul was transferred to that vessel as its surgeon. L'Allier was stationed at Akaroa until January 1843, when she returned to France.

Etienne Raoul, the son of a French naval captain, was born in Brest on 23 July 1815 and qualified as a surgeon at l'Ecole de Sante (the School of Health) at Brest in 1836. In 1837 he was appointed a member of the Commission of African Exploration. In December of that year the crew of La Malouine were struck by an epidemic at Casamance Island, French West Africa (Sénégal). Raoul is credited with saving the lives of many, and his efforts were recognised in August 1838 when he was made a Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur. His medical skills were put to the test in Akaroa in 1841. Several of the crew of I'Aube had, during a walk near Akaroa, eaten the highly poisonous berries of tutu (Coriaria arborea). One sailor died almost immediately, but the others were "rapidly put out of danger" by Etienne Raoul, who received some assistance from an English doctor, William Davies, of Port Jackson, Australia.

On his return to France in the autumn of 1843, Raoul was invited to classify the botanical specimens he had collected in New Zealand, which had been sent to the National Paris Museum of Natural History. He worked under the direction of Adolphe Brongniart and Joseph Decaisne. As Raoul was the first to investigate the flora of the eastern side of the South Island in any detail, many of the plants he collected were new species. He published page 59 a preliminary report of the new species in the journal Annates de Sciences Naturelles in 1844. Two years later his Choix de Plantes de la Nouvelle-Zélande (1846) appeared. This book, with Latin text and thirty plates, contained detailed descriptions of the forty-four new species, most but not all of which Raoul had published in the Annates. Thirty-three of these were illustrated. The new species included such now well-known plants as karamu (Coprosma robust a), Corokia cotoneaster, tumatu-kuru or wild Irishman (Dis-caria toumatou), pokaka (Elaeocarpus hookerianus), broadleaf (Griselinia littoralis) and a ribbonwood (Hoheria angustifolia). Choix de Plantes also contains a listing of the then-known species of the New Zealand flora, totalling about 950 species, of which over 500 were flowering plants. Thomas Cheeseman noted that these species "included no small number of synonyms and introduced plants. If these are eliminated his list will probably be reduced to under 800." Most of the new species Raoul described are still accepted today.

The thirty black-and-white plates in Choix de Plantes are beautifully drawn and engraved. The artist was Alfred Riocreux (1820-1912), who, as noted in the previous chapter, drew many of the illustrations for the botanical Atlas of d'Urville's Voyage au Pôle Sud. Riocreux was employed as an artist at the National Paris Museum of Natural History. He was born near Paris, at Sevres, where his father was curator of the Musee de Ceramique. Previously his father had been an artist at the State Porcelain Factory at Sevres, and Alfred was trained as an artist by his father. When Adolphe Brongniart saw the sketches done by the teenage Alfred while visiting his father, who was now manager of the State Porcelain Factory, he drew his attention to botany. Brongniart was probably responsible for bringing Alfred Riocreux to the Paris Museum. Riocreux produced many fine illustrations at the Paris Museum, including those for publications by Joseph Decaisne. These included drawings for the periodical La Revue Horticole, which Decaisne edited for a time. T. G. Hill, author of The Essentials of Illustration (London, 1915), described the drawings Riocreux made for a work on seaweeds by Gustave Thuret as "the finest plates ever published in a botanical work". The distinguished Dutch botanist F. A. Stafleu, writing in 1966, commented: "it must be stated again that Riocreux was one of the great botanical artists of all times". Surprisingly, thirty of Riocreux's original black-and-white drawings for Raoul's Choix de Plantes are now at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Alfred Riocreux had a good eye for botanical detail, and his illustrations are accurate and life-like.

Etienne Raoul continued with medical work on his return to France and in 1844 wrote a thesis on the relationship between rheumatic fever and heart conditions. Raoul had so impressed the scientists at the Paris Museum that they wrote to the Minister of Marine, urging that Raoul be sent overseas again to continue his studies on natural history and medicine, and suggesting the West Indies. The Minister accepted their suggestion in part and Raoul was sent to West Africa (1846-7), with the task of centralising health page 60 services for the French fleet there. Despite the considerable work involved in these duties, Raoul found time to collect plants. In 1849 he was made "médicin-professeur" at the port of Brest, his birthplace. He wrote a book, Guide hygiénique et medical pour les bâtiments de commerce qui fréquentent la Côte d'Occidental d'Afrique (a guide to hygiene and medicine for ships of commerce visiting the coast of West Africa), published by R. Dupont, Paris, 1851. He died in Brest on 30 March 1852, aged thirty-seven.

His services to New Zealand botany have been commemorated in the genus Raoulia, which Sir Joseph Hooker described from specimens Raoul had collected. He did not, it seems, see the most famous species, Raoulia eximia, the vegetable sheep. Etienne Raoul is remembered too in the species names of several New Zealand plants — Plantago raoulii, Hebe raoulii and Carex raoulii. There has been some confusion in the literature between three members of the Raoul family. Raoul Island (until recently known as Sunday Island) is the main island of the Kermadec group to the north of New Zealand. It was named after Etienne's uncle, Joseph Raoul, who was pilot-master on the Recherche under Admiral d'Entrecasteaux when the island was discovered in 1793. Another Raoul, Etienne's nephew Edouard, arranged publication of a French edition of Mrs Hetley's book (chapter XII), which included a description by Edouard Raoul of some New Zealand woods.