WELCOME
The delight of working in Darwin's House
has also become an inspiration for Feretia designs - and workshops - with discoveries to share with you:
The stories behind
a Galapagos finch; Darwin's orchid and a hawk moth; porites coral; a majestic Downy oak
and a primrose...
Created in studio for you choose and wear - or to come and try a Darwin related workshop -
when you wish to add to your story!
Feretia's Darwin Oak and garden Collection
Acorn cups cast from the same ancient Downey oak still gracing the front lawn of Charles Darwin's birthplace;
leaves from the tree translated into fine silver, bark cast and curled into rings.
Delicate cross sections of primroses:
uniquely historic links to the past.
Feretia's
Mangrove finch
Camarhynchus heliobates.
This little mangrove finch, endemic to the Galápagos Islands, lives on Isabela island in the pristine mangrove forests.
One of 'Darwin's finches', it is critically endangered and one of the rarest birds in the world today.
Worth giving lots of attention to, given its role in Darwin's theory of evolution in understanding natural selection, and in celebrating this great man's legacy.
Darwin's Orchid and giant Hawk moth.
Angraecum Sesquipedale and Xanthopan morgani praedicta.
A botanist at heart?
Darwin predicted in his book on orchids in 1862, that a moth with a proboscis long enough - 13 inches - to reach the nectar in the bottom of the orchid's spur would be found and prove to be the orchids' pollinator. Decades later, it was found in Madagascar, and named in honour of his prediction!
A perfect example of co-evolution.
Drawn in 1837 Darwin's sketch of an evolutionary tree or coral was possibly modelled on Corallium rubrum.
Feretia's Coral
As a naturalist on board the Beagle, during his voyage around the world from 1831 - 1836
Charles Darwin mapped the coral reefs and their distribution along with collecting many
specimens of coral, and was fascinated by atolls, proposing a theory that coral grew on it's own skeleton foundations, originally growing around extinct volcanoes in order to stay in shallow light flooded waters. A theory vindicated in the early 1950s
Close-up of the Porites coral, off the Indian Ocean shores, from which Feretia pieces are cast; showing the hexagonal structures where tube-like animals (polyps) lived.
One of the corals in the specimens collected by Darwin - and also known as the jewel coral is very appropriate for Feretia to discover!
