The drawing of this new species of Ixora (family Rubiaceae) was made to accompany the written description submitted for publication in the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society. The plant species name is from the island Ua Poa, in the Marquesas Islands, where it was collected in 1997. The artist worked on this and other species from the Marquesas Islands while on assignment to the National Tropical Botanical Garden in Kauai in November 2004.
For resource material the artist was supplied with several herbarium specimens, pickled flowers and digital images. The process began with dissections made by the artist from the pickled and dried material of floral parts, fruits, and seeds. Sketches were made from the dissections under the microscope. Vegetative parts and inflorescences were sketched at natural size and all of the components were approved by the two co-authors, Warren L. Wagner (Smithsonian Institution), and David Lorence (National Tropical Botanical Garden). The individual drawings were inked on drafting film using brush and pen, scanned into Adobe Photoshop at 50% and then arranged to fit within a 5” x 8” format - the page size of the journal.
