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In 1705, the German-Dutch entomologist, naturalist, and scientific illustrator Maria Sibylla Merian (1647 – 1717) published a book titled Metamorphosis insectorum surinamensium. In it she documented insect life cycles, as well as plants and animals from Suriname. One of the plants she illustrated and described was the peacock flower, Caesalpinia pulcherrima which she called flos pavonis. She writes that she talked to American Indians in Suriname about the use of the peacock flower, and was told that it was known as an abortifacient: the African slaves and the American Indians were treated very badly by the Dutch, and they did not want their children to grow up to be slaves like them, so they used the peacock flower to induce abortions.

In an article on the history of abortifacients, Stassa Edwards points out that this “use of the peacock flower was deeply political.” Merian’s description, Edwards writes, “ascribes rationality to the act of abortion which, in the hands of Surinam’s slave women, is an act of resistance: a reclamation of their bodies and reproductive processes—neither of which, by legal standards of the eighteenth century, they owned.”

Professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School, Samuel Allen Counter (1944 – 2017), also studied Suriname natives’ knowledge about this plant. He was told that slaves not only used it for abortions, but to commit suicide as well.

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Peacock flower
Maria Sibylla Merian’s illustration of Caesalpinia pulcherrima in Metamorphosis insectorum surinamensium, from 1705. Merian was a groundbreaking naturalist, and did pioneering studies of insects, establishing that they undergo distinct and predictable life cycles (and they are not, as was previously believed, spontaneously born from mud). Internet Archive
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Abortifacient
Here’s the accompanying description of Caesalpinia pulcherrima where Merian mentions how the Suriname natives she talked to told her that they use the plant to induce abortions. A couple of Europeans had already described this application of the peacock flower, but Merian’s writing was different, because rather than morally decrying the use, she wrote about the practice expressing empathy for the women. Internet Archive
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Calm down!
A closeup of the peacock flower’s androecium and gynoecium leaves little to the imagination. That's the anther (the yellow pollen thingy) at the top, and the stigma (the thing that looks like human lips on a stalk) at the bottom. Photo: Martin Høyem
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Raceme
The peacock flower inflorescence is a good example of what we call a raceme. A raceme is an unbranched, indeterminate type of inflorescence. Typically a raceme has flowers with short floral stalks (pedicellate flowers) growing off the peduncle (but the floral stalks on the peacock flower inflorescence are actually quite long). The oldest flowers are at the bottom, and as the shoot grows in height, new flowers appear towards the tip of the inflorescence. Illustration: Martin Høyem

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