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Gardenia taitensis, also known as Tahitian Gardenia or Tiare Flower, is a species within the Rubiaceae family of flowering plants.

The anglicized name Tahitian Gardenia is something of a misnomer since it is neither native nor naturalised in Tahiti.

It was recorded there for the first time, however, by the naturalists Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander, when they landed on the island in 1769 during Captain Cook’s first Pacific voyage.

Gardenia taitensis is the national flower of French Polynesia and the Cook Islands.

Arum Italicum, commonly known as ‘Italian Lords and Ladies’ is a member of the family Araceae – a group of monocotyledonous plants whose flowers are borne on a type of fleshy stem, called a spadix, surrounded by a leaf-like curved bract.

Watercolours on paper, Sydney Parkinson, Madeira, 1768.

Dicliptera bracteata is a species within the Acanthaceae family of flowering plants.

Acanthaceae is a group of dicotyledonous plants containing almost 250 genera and about 2,500 species.

The dicotyledons, also known as dicots, are plants whose seed typically has two embryonic leaves or cotyledons. There are around 199,350 species within this group. Flowering plants that are not dicotyledons are monocotyledons (or monocots), typically having one embryonic leaf.

Watercolours on paper, Sydney Parkinson, Tahiti, 1769.

Bougainvillea was discovered by French botanist Philibert Commerçon along the coasts of Brazil in the 1760s.

The naturalist named the plant after his captain Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, with whom he sailed around the world aboard La Boudeuse.

Also on board was Commerçon’s housekeeper and mistress, Jeanne Baré, who was disguised as a man since women were strictly forbidden on French Navy ships at the time.

Baré acted as a nurse to Commerçon, who was often ill, as well as assisting him in his scientific work. Her gender was only publicly discovered when the expedition landed at Tahiti in 1768. She became the first woman known to have circumnavigated the world and remained with Commerçon till the end of his life.

The above illustration is of Bougainvillea spectabilis, a watercolour from the artist Sydney Parkinson, who landed at Brazil in 1768 aboard the Endeavour, also bound for Tahiti.

When French explorer Louis-Antoine de Bougainville landed at Tahiti in 1768, he immediately named the island ‘La Nouvelle Cythère’ (New Cytheria) after the birthplace of Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love.

The origin of Aphrodite’s name is unknown but according to the poet Hesiod it derived from ‘aphros’ – Greek for ‘foam’ – suggesting her full name meant “risen from foam”. Aphrodite’s Roman equivalent was the goddess Venus.

In the most famous version of her myth, Aphrodite floated ashore on a scallop shell, as depicted in Sandro Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus.

From Enchantment to Down, by Paris-based photographer Thomas Czarnecki, is a collection of photographs depicting fairy-tale heroines in scenes that are darker than their idyllic stories.

Above, ‘On the Other Shore – The Little Mermaid’.

Sea Foam Blue is a performance from a trio of dancers and animators known as Wives, taking place as part of the 33rd annual Rhubarb Festival at the Buddies in Bad Times Theatre in Toronto this evening.

The central character is a sexually confused mermaid caught between wanting to mate as a fish and being attracted to Ladies’ Man, a drunken sailor who resembles Leonard Cohen.

For Wives member Leah Fay Goldstein, the show is “about longing and loneliness that began as a dream I had about all women returning to the sea and leaving behind the search for a mate on land.”

US$2,250 for the basic silicone model. Add on a full or tattered dorsal fin for US$250 extra. Made by Eric Ducharme, otherwise known as The Mertailor.

Pictures via Chris Cumley, a collection of which can be viewed alongside an interview with the photographer on Mermaid author Carolyn Turgeon’s I Am A Mermaid blog.