Rumphius and the Rainbow Tree

Nutmeg, white orchids and tragedy

Not an abstract painting but the bark of a Rainbow Gum (Eucalyptus deglupta, Myrtaceae), Costa Rica (introduced). © Kristy Morley CC BY-4.0 https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/359624865

From a distance, the tree’s bark is a rainbow of green and yellow and red all glowing in the rising sun. Close up, it is a découpage landscape made from strips of coloured paper. This was how the naturalist Georg Eberhard Rumpf described the tree he called Arbor versicolor, the Rainbow Tree of Ambon.

Rumphius, the Latinized name by which he is more widely known, spent most of his life on the Indonesian island of Ambon. His path to Ambon was not direct. He was born in 1627 in Wölfersheim during the Thirty Years’ War. At the age of 18, he signed up to serve the Republic of Venice, but found himself instead on a ship called De Zwarte Raaf (The Black Raven) that was not sailing to the Mediterranean. The vessel was bound for Brazil, where the Dutch and Portuguese were at war over control of the sugar trade. But De Zwarte Raaf was intercepted and captured by the Portuguese navy. After three years’ compulsory service in the foreign legion, he returned home.

He did not stay for long. Rumphius signed up with the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (Dutch East India Company). In late 1652, he boarded the East Indiaman Muyden and sailed for Java. Working his way through the ranks, he was sent to Ambon in the Maluku (Molucca) islands. Here he focused on his true calling — documenting the flora and…