Re: plant memories

Rowan Adams wrote:
Have you seen the Flower Fairy books by Cicely Mary Barker? She must have done the same kind of thing as a child, and carried on with that kind of imagination as an adult. Perhaps that's part of what we're missing and what makes these memories so powerful.
Great clothes designs - if only somebody would try to make some of them for real! The books I've got don't have fuchsia, but I know I've seen a fuchsia fairy she did somewhere.
Came across this mail when tidying up my correspondence file and just had to comment on this item. When I was about ten I was given a combined volume of the four little books "Flower Fairies of the Seasons", which was all based on English wildflowers. I was living in Africa at the time, but perused it so often that when I _did_ get to England for a couple of years I could call most of the really ordinary wild flowers by at least their common names. I guess this was my first introduction to formal botany and led eventully to first a degree and then a lifelong interest in the subject!

All credit to Cicely that her illustration of each flower was botanically very accurate and the wonderfully-imagined matching costumes of the fairies only reinforced the effect. Of course in the early days my interest in the fairies was stronger than my desire to name the plants, but I still find her illustrations most attractive. I have read that her aim with the pictures was not to please children (which it is said she did not much like!) but to record the wildflowers in a way which would fix them in people's minds. I should say she succeeded admirably.

The book still exists. I passed it on to my daughter and she to hers. Actually whil it was little use in Africa it is quite helpful in NZ, as our weed flora here almost all originated in England and piggybacked here in soil imported with crops and garden plants by early settlers. There was no effort at quarantine until much later, by which time most of the damage had been done and sadly we got a fair number of plants we would much rather be without..

Moira
--
Tony & Moira Ryan,
Wainuiomata, North Island, NZ. Pictures of our garden at:-
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/cherie1/Garden/TonyandMoira/index.htm
NEW PICTURES AND DIAGRAMS ADDED 20/Feb/2005

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