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From the exhibition

Hypericum anagalloides Cham. & Schltdl.

· Collected November 1837, San Francisco, California

Hypericum anagalloides Cham. & Schltdl.
This is a botanical herbarium specimen, not a political cartoon or caricature. It shows pressed and mounted stems of *Hypericum anagalloides* (tinker's penny, a small creeping St. John's wort), collected during the Voyage of HMS Sulphur by George W. Barclay near San Francisco. Multiple labels record the collection number (1629), voyage details, and a 1956 determination by N. K. B. Robson of the Natural History Museum, London. It has no connection to the print satire tradition of Hogarth, Gillray, or their successors. Describing it as a caricature or comic precursor would be inaccurate. No label can be honestly written to that brief for this image.

Public domain, restored and presented by comicbooks.com http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/