
The Cactaceae | Monograph | 1919 -1923 | Landmark Studies
“When struck by lightning or wounded in any other manner during the dry season, it recovers very rapidly by the formation of a heavy callus over the wounded spot. If it is wounded in the rainy season, however, bacterial decay sets in very rapidly and a large plant may be destroyed in less than a week as a result of a small wound. The nests made in them by woodpeckers are always lined by heavy callus and appear to occasion no permanent injury.”

Butterflies: How Two 19th-Century Teenage Sisters’ Forgotten Paintings Sparked a Triumph of Modern Conservation | Brain Pickings
... these drawings are equal to any I have ever seen by modern artists ... every tuft of hair in the caterpillar, the silken webs of the cocoon, or the delicate and often intricate pencillings on the wings of a moth, stand out with a prominence of relief which it is perfectly impossible to reproduce by simple water colours...