The Helen Adelaide Wood Collection (circa 1900-1927)
The Helen Adelaide Wood Collection housed in the Natural History Museum of Jamaica (NHMJ), Division of the Institute of Jamaica (IOJ), consists of approximately 480 original and annotated illustrations of plants and animals from the early 1900s. All are dated and signed by Miss Wood. The illustrations of both native and introduced species including cacti, orchids, birds, caterpillars, lizards have been in the custody of the IOJ since 1927, the year of her death. The exact date of Miss Wood’s birth is not known however she was generally believed to have been born sometime in the 1800s.
Over 200 drawings are bound and numbered in two large folios. Some of the illustrations are in plas-tic and paper frame kits and others are on acid-free paper. Quite a number of the illustrations are on mounting boards. Miss Wood’s original drawiThe Helen Adelaide Wood Collection housed in the Natural History Museum of Jamaica (NHMJ), Institute of Jamaica (IOJ), consists of approximately 480 original and annotated illustrations of plants and animals from the early 1900s. All are dated and signed by Miss Wood. The illustrations of both native and introduced species including cacti, orchids, birds, caterpillars, lizards have been in the custody of the IOJ since 1927, the year of her death. The exact date of Miss Wood’s birth is not known however she was generally believed to have been born sometime in the 1800s.
Over 200 drawings are bound and numbered in two large folios. Some of the illustrations are in plastic and paper frame kits and others are on acid-free paper. Quite a number of the illustrations are on mounting boards.
Miss Wood’s original drawings were reproduced in William Fawcett’s and Alfred Barton Rendle’s impressive book on the Flora of Jamaica: Orchidaceae, vol.1 (1910).