Free-spirited as a wild flower

Tribute to Dorothy Fernando, foremost naturalist in Sri Lanka, on her 100th b’day

The 100th birth anniversary of Dorothy Fernando of ‘Wild Flowers of Ceylon’ fame fell on September 18. She was well known from the 1950s till her death in 1981 as a foremost nature artist of the time. She is mentioned among the famous of Sri Lanka’s past naturalists in the book ‘Pearls, spices and green gold’ by Rohan Pethiyagoda.

Dorothy Dias was born at Panadura in 1907. Her father, C.E.A. Dias was a well known planter with extensive possessions of tea and rubber lands. Dorothy had her schooling at Bishop’s College in Colombo and Malvern Girls’ School in the UK. She grew up in Colombo with her conservative parents but spent much time on the family rubber and coconut estates as well as holiday homes at Hatton and later Nuwara Eliya, developing a great love for the countryside and its people, plants and animals.

She showed her fiercely independent nature in her late teens by defying her father in pursuing her interests in painting and nature, rather than developing a career. Later she demonstrated that same spirit in marrying the man of her choice, who became one of Sri Lanka’s prominent physicians, Cyril Fernando and helped her realise her ambitions.

Her love of nature was to remain on the back boiler for many years while raising her family of four children, periodically arranging trips to remote areas with her two sons. Despite her privileged upbringing, she showed her sensitive and caring nature by being an active member of the Ceylon Social Service League, where she ran a sewing school for underprivileged girls for many years. Her technique in watercolour paintings of flowers developed slowly while illustrating articles on the indigenous orchid flora for her brother-in-law Ernest Soysa during the 1940s.

The breakthrough came in the late 1940s when her husband provided her with the material necessities to travel independently and collect and paint wildflowers, culminating in the book Wildflowers of Ceylon published in 1954. This book was written by her and illustrated with water colour paintings of wildflowers she had collected.

The untimely death of her husband in 1955 was a short-lived setback. She continued her explorations of the country, now in the company of her daughters, observing the fauna and flora and turning her interests once more to butterflies and bees. 1969 saw the way out for more creative activity, with the daughters safely cared for by their husbands and both sons back in the island.

The result was a flood of watercolour nature studies of flowers, butterflies, bees and other insects. At this time she commenced work on a major project, to paint Sri Lanka’s wild orchids with the intention of producing another book.

She travelled widely, visiting and observing the plants in their native habitats before painting them, often in the Rest House or circuit bungalow where she stayed. By the time of her sudden death in 1981 while preparing for her third exhibition, she had painted over 100 orchids. These paintings have only recently been published.

Her son Malik Fernando accompanied her on her orchid hunts and helped collect the specimens and identify them. Her influence still prevails as Malik, now a retired doctor, is well known as a marine biologist. In the last years of Dorothy’s life she had a profound influence over her grandson, then teenaged Jayaindra. He took up nature art and illustrated Dorothy’s last publication ‘Familiar trees of Sri Lanka’. Jayaindra Fernando, a consultant surgeon, is the co-author of ‘Fruits of Sri Lanka’(WHT) and continues the legacy of Dorothy Fernando.