Tales From the Vaults : Lewis Weston’s Dillwyn’s 'Adam's laburnum'

There was a great turn out at our event in March celebrating some of the rarer treasures in our collections and the history of Swansea Libraries.

William Ewart Gladstone (1809-1898)

We had a good assortment of visitors to the Discovery Room over the Friday and Saturday, March 10-11 with around 150 people attending altogether. There was a wide-ranging collection of historic books, maps and newspapers to look at from Tudor to Victorian times onwards. One highlight was a chance to see the old bust of Gladstone which formerly overlooked the Old Central Library reading room alongside a fine collection of historic photographs of the library.

Particularly popular were the historic Hornor album of rare watercolours of South Wales from 1820, a French manual on childbirth from 1685, and the earliest grammar book in Welsh written by Gruffydd Robert in 1567. Also attracting attention was a Dylan Thomas book which featured Swansea artist Ceri Richards’ hand drawn illustrations made in 1953.  Visitors could also watch a bunch of archival films from the British Film Institute some filmed by Swansea library staff in the 1960s. We are planning to describe some of the things seen in the future on this blog and aim to do more of these kind of events in the future.

One rarity on exhibit was an offprint article on a gardening oddity, a hybrid with two kinds of leaves and three kinds of flowers, planted in Sketty Hall by Lewis Weston Dillwyn in 1833. The article was first printed in the Royal Institution of South Wales's journal in 1845. The illustration you see here was probably drawn by Dillwyn himself. 

Lewis Weston Dillwyn FRS (1778-1855)

L. W. Dillwyn was born in 1778, the eldest son of a Pennsylvanian Quaker called William Dillwyn, who campaigned against slavery and who purchased Swansea's Cambrian Pottery in 1802 on his son's behalf.

An ardent student of nature Dillwyn published numerous works on botany and conchology and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1804. He accompanied Miss Talbot of Penrice to Goat's Hole, Paviland, after human remains were discovered in the cave in December 1822 and wrote to Oxford Professor of Geology William Buckland to examine what became known as "The Red Lady of Paviland".

Dillwyn was appointed High Sheriff of Glamorgan in 1818, represented Glamorgan as a Whig (Liberal) MP in the first reformed parliament from 1832 and became Mayor of Swansea seven years later. Having lived in Burrows Lodge, which used to stand near Swansea Museum, he purchased Sketty Hall in 1831 for £3,800. In 1835 he became a founder and first president of the Swansea Philosophical and Literary Society, which became the Royal Institution of South Wales and built Swansea Museum six years later.

Account of a Lusus of the hybrid Cytisus Adami. (1845)

Charles Darwin

'Adam's laburnum' (or Cytisus adami) was a confusing mystery for nineteenth century botanists because of its origins as a graft-chimera between two species, a laburnum, Laburnum anagyroides, and a broom, Chamaecytisus purpureus. It was named after its creator Jean-Louis Adam, a nurseryman in Vitry near Paris. Dillwyn's example grown in Sketty was perhaps the first grown in Britain. Charles Darwin was fascinated by it, and it was a key example in his book The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication (1868) which added extra details to his theories on evolution. He grew his own specimens described in a letter to botanist J. D Hooker in 1847.

Charles Darwin - "I am extremely glad I sent the Laburnum: the raceme grew in centre of tree, and had a most minute tuft of leaves, which presented no unusual appearance: there is now on one raceme a terminal bilateral [i.e., half yellow, half purple] flower, and on other raceme a single terminal pure yellow and one adjoining bilateral flower. If you would like them I will send them; otherwise I would keep them to see whether the bilateral flowers will seed, for Herbert says the yellow ones will... I have seen Dillwyn in the Gardeners' Chronicle, and was disgusted at it, for I thought my bilateral flowers would have been a novelty for you."

Adam's laburnum was planted in the National Botanic Garden of Wales in the Wallace Garden to illustrate its significance in the story of evolution.