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Images and stories; process and progress.

Strange Flowers: Prison Ivy

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Prison Ivy (Toxicodendron evadere)

In Soren Prison, the inmates have, through years of experimentation, developed a most unusual plant. The biology of the Toxicodendron evadere remains mysterious; however, preliminary generic analysis of the few samples that have been successfully smuggled beyond the prison walls suggests the plant is something entirely unprecedented in the botanical literature — a kind of chimera blending DNA from dandelions and poison ivy with various strains of mold, genital fungus, tapeworms, and lichens. Former prison guards, once plied with alcohol and offered a sufficient bribe, will share stories of those enterprising prisoners who secretly cultivate Prison Ivy in discarded toilet bowls and fractured coffee mugs. It is said that the fruit borne by the Toxicodendron evadere is a commodity of great value amongst the inmates; their poison juices offer the only hope for escape from the impenetrable prison walls.


Strange Flowers: An Illustrated Field Guide

Almost nothing is known about Franz Sieber’s youth in Prague. The historical record of the late botanist’s life seems to begin with his admission to Charles University, the Czech Republic’s oldest and most prestigious institution of higher learning. He studied first visual arts, then architecture, and then engineering before, finally, deciding to focus his talents in the field of natural history, and in particular botany. Although Sieber excelled in his studies, this unorthodox academic trajectory already seems to contain a hint of the restlessness and disquiet that would haunt the man until his death in an insane asylum at the age of 55.

After graduating with distinction from Charles University, Dr. Franz Sieber went on to enjoy enormous success in his career as a botanist. He travelled to the most remote and far-flung corners of the world, collecting floral samples, cataloguing new plant species, and authoring an impressive number of botanical and ethnographic manuscripts whose scholarly value remains uncontested, even to this day. Dr. Sieber financed his expeditions by selling rare plant specimens to herbariums, and by organizing exhibitions of the various artistic and ethnographic items he had amassed during his travels. By the end of his career, Dr. Sieber employed a team of aspiring young botanists who conducted various collection and research duties under his supervision. In spite of his enviable professional success, Dr. Sieber’s personal diaries and correspondences paint the picture of a man who was insecure, anxious, and perpetually dissatisfied with his accomplishments.

Behind his public-facing persona, Dr. Franz Sieber was a deeply troubled man.

Dr. Sieber’s mental illness went undiagnosed during his lifetime; however, contemporary psychiatrists have suggested that he likely suffered from some form of paranoid schizophrenia. As the disease progressed, both Dr. Sieber’s behaviour and his publications became increasingly disturbed. He often found himself involved in violent clashes with authorities. In time, the once-esteemed scientist became the subject of ridicule, derision, and unwholesome rumours. By the end of his life, the disgraced man was only able to support himself by selling off certain prized items from his personal collection.

Destitute, unshaven, and garbed in filthy rags, Dr. Sieber made his final public appearance before a council of Prague’s city elders, angrily demanding financial compensation for a rabies treatment that he claimed to have discovered. It was not long after this incident that Dr. Sieber found himself committed to Prague’s most infamously cruel insane asylum — the Bohnice Psychiatric Hospital. Dr. Sieber would remain there, in that grim place, until his death 14 years later.

It was during his time in the asylum that Dr. Sieber wrote his final botanical manuscript. That document — incomplete and unpublished — consists of a sequence of short notes, arranged in no discernible order, written in a patchwork fashion that interweaves passages of Czech, English, German, Russian, and some other language that has yet to be identified. The meaning of these strange writings remains controversial. Dr. Sieber’s notebooks seem to detail the biology of a series of very strange flowers — plants that the author ostensibly observed during his many travels to the most remote and death-haunted corners of our world.

The slim volume of images and stories that I am in the process of compiling is not intended to be a comprehensive account of Dr. Sieber’s final manuscript. Instead, Strange Flowers contains only a very small selection of Dr. Sieber’s many writings, translated, edited for clarity, and organized into a loose narrative arc. I have chosen to present Dr. Sieber’s floral descriptions alongside full-colour illustrations, as is befitting for any respectable field guide. However, since it remains unclear whether Dr. Sieber’s strange flowers ever existed outside of the botanist’s own tortured psyche, these illustrations are intended only to depict the philosophical and aesthetic underpinnings of the late botanist’s writing; there would seem to be no point in attempting to reproduce the anatomy of Dr. Sieber’s strange flowers in any literal sense.

It should be noted that this book has been compiled and published against the wishes of Dr. Sieber’s surviving relatives, and against the advisement of certain key figures in the botanical academy. It would seem that there are many scholars who would prefer these writings disappear from the historical record, lest they should tarnish the late botanist’s otherwise impressive scientific legacy. However, having studied Dr. Sieber’s asylum notes in considerable detail, it is my sincere opinion that these writings are important and valuable and must be shared with the community. I will leave it for the reader to decide whether the value of Dr. Sieber’s strange field guide is scientific, ethnographic or, perhaps, literary.

Strange FlowersNeal Auch