The ‘Moving Plant of Bengal’: introduction to Western gardens, naming and early representation, poetic and graphic.

The early history of the European ‘discovery’ of the ‘Moving Plant of Bengal’, now Codariocalyx motorius, but for long known as Desmodium gyrans, is discussed, as is its introduction to Western gardens and its scientific description. The pre-eminent role of James Kerr (1737–1782) in sending seeds and drawings by an anonymous Bengali artist to John Hope, John Fothergill and William Cullen is described, and the use of it made by Hope in his botanical lectures. References by the poets Erasmus Darwin and Maria Montolieu are discussed, as also its graphic representation by the engravers Frederick Polydore Nodder and Yves-Marie Le Gouaz, and in paper mosaic by Mary Delany. Also discussed is a paper by Pierre M. A. Broussonet in which the discovery of the plant was attributed to Lady Anne Monson.