In the 1870s when prolific English botanical artist Marianne North came to Singapore, she was fascinated with the wild jungle that thrived on the island.

She captured some of the greenery she saw here in two oil paintings - one of a lane lined with towering nutmeg and cananga trees, and the other of the green foliage and bright red flowers on a Madagascar tree.

These are just two paintings in the portfolio of the celebrated artist, who travelled around the world to countries such as Brazil, Spain, Japan and South Africa, prolifically documenting plants and flowers with a paintbrush.

Her 833 works are displayed in an art gallery named after her in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew - the famed attraction in south-west London that is also known as Kew Gardens.

Now, Singaporeans can see reproductions of her botanical artworks in an exhibition at the Singapore Botanic Gardens. A total of 186 works, including the two she painted during her time in Singapore, are on show.

The exhibition, which runs till Nov 26, also showcases North's travel writings from her autobiography, Recollections Of A Happy Life.

The idea for the exhibition was sparked when Kew Gardens gave the Singapore Botanic Gardens a set of facsimiles of her South-east Asia-related paintings in 2015, says Dr Nigel Taylor, 61, group director of the Singapore Botanic Gardens.

The paintings were digitally printed and then mounted on wood for the exhibition. And much like how her original works are displayed in the Kew Gardens gallery, the reproductions, which come in various sizes and lengths, are hung close to one another.

The exhibition also throws the spotlight on the colourful life of an adventurous traveller who defied social conventions.

Born in Victorian England in 1830, North did not have formal artistic training and took only a few drawing lessons as a child. She started oil painting only in 1867.

She was not a trained biologist either, but fell in love with plants during her travels. Unlike naturalists of the time, she would paint the plants on site instead of digging them up and taking them home.

She would also weave in the surrounding backdrop in her paintings, instead of simply drawing the plant on its own. This gave some context to how the plant grows in nature.

She also collected many new plant specimens and sent them to Kew Gardens. In honour of her discoveries, North had five plant species and a plant genus named after her.

She was commended by Queen Victoria and praised by English naturalist Charles Darwin for her dedication to art and botany.

Excerpts of their letters to her and other detailed nuggets about her life are displayed at the exhibition here.

North, who never married, died in 1890. Dr Taylor says: "Alongside the lush greenery at Singapore's first Unesco World Heritage Site, visitors can get a glimpse of the flora in the 1800s, including that of old Singapore through North's paintings."