ComicBook Experience

From the exhibition

Spiranthes romanzoffiana Cham. (Irish Lady's-Tresses)

· Collected 1868, Powell's Colorado Exploring Expedition

Spiranthes romanzoffiana Cham. (Irish Lady's-Tresses)
This is a pressed herbarium specimen, not a cartoon or caricature. Two dried plants of *Spiranthes romanzoffiana* — the hooded ladies'-tresses orchid — are mounted on archival paper, their spiral flower spikes and strap-like basal leaves intact despite desiccation. Collector's and institutional labels in period copperplate script identify the Powell expedition and a Paris museum accession. No satirical content, printmaking technique, or caricature tradition is present or applicable. To write a political-cartoon wall label for this object would require fabricating history this label declines to invent.

Public domain, restored and presented by comicbooks.com http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/