In Focus: A fresh look at wild flowers

v: In Focus

A fresh look at wildflowers

Elaine MacGillivray

I was an archivist. For almost twenty years I poured over the daily intimacies of the lives of some of Scotland’s greatest thinkers; documenting and describing their personal and business letters, financial records, notebooks, lectures, drawings, paintings, maps, plans, wildflower specimen books and anything else that may have been left behind, and making these valuable and insightful records accessible to the public for research. The great privilege of working so closely with archive collections is that we are repeatedly offered the opportunity to develop knowledge and interest in a person, subject or era that otherwise may never have occurred to us to explore. Through my work, I lived vicariously through the 18 th century right up into the present day, meeting along the way diplomats, scientists, artists, poets, architects, geologists, educators, storytellers, tradition bearers and botanists, many of whom were leading intellects and innovators in their fields. These encounters with people from the past have the capacity to inspire actions in the present, which can transform our perspective and understanding of our current world and our place in it.

I have been influenced by so many thinkers and ideas from the past that it’s difficult to cherry-pick a favourite. Some do stand out more than others, however; one of these is the female botanist, Joan Wendoline Clark (1908-1999). Clark grew up in Kincardineshire and Sussex, was fluent in French and German, and was skilled in shorthand. A trained typist, she worked for a time at the Foreign Office in London and at the British Embassy in Paris. In the 1930s, she returned to Scotland with her Scottish husband and together they settled in Lochaber, where she remained until her death. Shortly after this, her daughter, Anna MacLean, kindly gifted Joan’s manuscript collection to the School of Scottish Studies Archives. The collection includes her correspondence and botanical research notes dating from the 1970s right up until 1999, along with three specimen books containing almost 350 pressed wildflowers collected from Onich, Ballachulish, North Uist and Glencoe in around 1976.

In 2014, I was tasked with cataloguing the Joan Clark collection. Clark’s wildflower specimen books are made up of three A4 sized scrapbooks made of sugar paper. Turning the pages, I found each contained between one and three pressed wildflower specimens. Bedstraw (Galium spp.), Iris (I. germanica), Seapinks (Armeria spp.), Sundew (Drosera sp.), Dog’s Mercury (Mercurialis perennis) and so many more are carefully laid out and attached with tiny strips of paper glued at either end. Beside each specimen is the name of the plant, the location it was found, and the date collected; additional notes are recorded in blue or black ink. The addition of this metadata means that the specimen books are not purely aesthetic, but also of scientific value.

Joan Clark’s manuscript collection is testament to her incredible contribution to botanical science. Her meticulous and painstaking research informed Richard Pankhurst and J. M. Mullin’s Flora of the Outer Hebrides (1991), and she collaborated with Ian MacDonald of the Gaelic Book Council to publish Gaelic Names of Plants / Ainmean Gaidhlig Lusan (1999). A member of the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland, she was mentored by another leading female British botanist, Mary McCallum-Webster (1906- 1985). McCallum-Webster authored the Flora of Moray, Nairn and East Inverness (1978)— the typist for this work was no other than Joan Clark. The two women made significant contributions to the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland’s Atlas of British Flora (1962; 2002). Many have paid tribute to Joan Clark’s calibre as a botanist, not least the renowned and respected botanist A. C. Jermy of the Natural History Museum (Watsonia, 2000).

In a blog post written for the School of Scottish Studies Archives in June 2021, Jenny Sturgeon observes that ‘local names for flora and fauna root us to where we come from and there is a cultural history and identity associated with them’ (Sturgeon, 2021). Growing up on the west coast of Argyll, I was taught the names of the local wildflowers by my mother and grandmothers. I felt a very personal connection to Clark’s wildflower specimen books, as many of the specimens documented were from the area just north of my childhood home. On seeing the Sea-pinks, I was immediately transported back to summer weeks spent with my grandmother when we would clamber over the slate rocks in front of her house on west coast of the Isle of Seil. She would point out to me Sea-pinks, limpets, and fool’s gold (iron pyrite). Hours were lost engrossed in scouring rock pools for anemones as the tide receded. Later in life, during my post-graduate studies in Liverpool, my mother once sent me a Snapdragon (Antirrhinum majus)— collected, pressed, and placed between two pieces of tissue paper in a card. On it was a scribbled note: ‘snapdragons are out and so I thought you would like to see one!’

For me— as, indeed, for many —flora, fauna and the natural world offer up a very tangible connection to people, place and time. I am not referring here to clock-time, the time that so often punctuates our daily lives and lives inside our thinking brains. I am referring to the time that is waymarked by changes in the natural world. Time determined by the age of the rocks; by the quality of the light and the character of the weather at different times of year; by the abundance and depth of colour in the leaves; by the lustre of the Brambles; by the direction of flight of a skein of geese overhead. Time which is not dictated by our hectic work schedules, family, childcare, pet-care, healthcare, our volunteer and other daily commitments. Time which is outside of ourselves, but, when we pay it more heed, does something to help us reconnect with and acknowledge our natural roots in the world. A more organic time— a time which is signposted by the flowering of the Snapdragons.

With this in mind, and inspired by Joan Clark, on a bright June day in 2021, I set out to lose some hours in nature, collecting some of my own herbarium specimens. I packed up my rucksack with the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland’s Guide to Collecting and Pressing Specimens, my phone (for the camera), a pair of scissors, a pack of coffee filters (in place of parchment paper), and Delia Smith’s Complete Illustrated Cookbook, which is the weightiest book in my library and now my makeshift flower press. Fully prepared (I felt), I headed out to a local Perthshire woodland.

The woodland is formed of a gully straddling a small burn. The steep banks either side of the burn are held up by the roots of Lime (Tilia x europaea) and Alder (Alnus glutinosa) trees, their bases shrouded in Ferns (Polypodiophyta spp.) and Moss (Bryophyta spp.). Further out from the banks of the burn are mature Oak (Quercus robur) and Beech (Fagus spp.) stems. Under the dappled light of the canopy can be seen a sparse covering of woody shrubs such as Hazel (Corylus spp.), Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna), Holly (Ilex spp.) and Elder (Sambucus nigra), as well as some saplings from parent trees. The path through the woodland runs between two single-track country roads which are flanked by agricultural fields, in some of which are grown Spring Barley (Hordeum vulgare) and Broad Beans (Vicia faba), and in others are housed pigs and cows.

With hawk-eyes, I made my way slowly up the incline path. When I found a suitable specimen, I would first take a photograph. I was careful to only cut a flower where there was plentiful supply, snipping off just one flower head for each specimen. I discovered that it is actually quite difficult to get a threedimensional flower to lie flat within a coffee filter without losing the structural integrity of the flower itself. Once I had overcome this technical challenge, I carefully slid the first of the occupied coffee filters between illustrations of Delia’s scones and Victoria sponges. In this way I proceeded until I had collected around ten specimens, which I felt was sufficient for a first outing. Having allowed myself some mistakes and learning in the process, I resolved to improve my technique next time.

On returning home, I briefly retrieved my specimens from Delia’s safe custody (they would remain with her for a further six weeks, to become fully pressed) and began my attempt to identify each. Some of them I knew well, like Common Broom (Cytisus scoparius), Vetches (Vicia sativa), Campion (Silene spp.) and Bluebell (Hyacinthoides non-scripta); others left me scratching my head. Attempting to identify my specimens, I found myself poring over Francis Buchanan White’s Flora of Perthshire (1898), the Perthshire Society for Natural Science’s Checklist of the Plants of Perthshire (1992), and an old copy of the Readers’ Digest Guide to Wildflowers of Britain (1996). I compared my specimens to photographs that I had of Joan Clark’s specimen books, and to images and descriptions on the webpages of the Scottish Wildlife Trust, Wildflower Finder, and the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland. The result of all this endeavour is that some of my metadata remains lacking until such a time as I can identify and name the plant— or until my newly acquired membership of the botany section of the Perthshire Society for Natural Science pays dividends!

The creative process of collecting, pressing, identifying, and documenting was completely absorbing, and— much like hunting for sea anemones —I lost many more hours to it than I had planned to. But the benefits outweighed my inability to stick to a clock-time plan. I learned to pay greater attention to my environment, gained a deeper understanding of my locality, and through the documenting process consolidated knowledge around the interdependence of people and plants. In trying to see the world further afieldthrough the posthumous botanical wisdom of Joan Clark, the present-day natural world has opened up to me in a way I might never have experienced.

I now prioritise time spent outdoors in the garden and further afield. I am growing a wider variety of flowers (for the bees) and vegetables (for ourselves). I quietly pay attention to the daily, monthly, seasonal, and yearly changes. I observe and monitor all our visitors— robins, sparrows, swifts, blackbirds, great tits, mistle thrushes, toads and even the snails and slugs (despite the damage they do to my Brassicas). Last autumn, I gave over four glorious days to foraging for Raspberries and Brambles (Rubus spp.), which were particularly lustrous this year. But the most significant impact for me has been my rediscovery of a more organic sense of time, and the ability of nature to shift one’s perspective about one’s place in the world. Spending time outdoors, absorbed in a creative activity centred on learning about or caring for that environment— and, most often, being completely alone while doing it —is an essential component of how I manage my mental health and wellbeing. The accumulated anxiety arising from the minutiae of daily life fades when seeking out the details in the natural world, and in the awe inspired by contemplating a century-old tree.

I have such great respect for the knowledge, work, tenacity, dedication, and patience that Joan Clark and others must have brought to their botanical studies. I wonder what she would have made of my amateur attempts to emulate her. I hope that she would be pleased that her legacy has inspired, and is able to continue to inspire, a newfound passion to know, understand and protect plants and their environment. And, as spring begins to bloom, I look forward to another year’s exploration of the natural world around me.

Images

Dog’s Mercury, The Joan Clark Collection, School of Scottish Studies Archives

Bitter Vetch, The Joan Clark Collection, School of Scottish Studies Archives

Water Speedwell, The Joan Clark Collection, School of Scottish Studies Archives

Goat St John’s Wort, The Joan Clark Collection, School of Scottish Studies Archives Common Broom, Elaine MacGillivray Common Sorrel, Elaine MacGillivray

Bluebell, Harebell, Elaine MacGillivray Unknown wildflower, Elaine MacGillivray

Images are copyright; please do not reproduce.

References

Jermy, A.C., (2000) ‘Obituary of Joan Wendoline Clark (1908-1999)’ in Watsonia, 23: 359-372.

Murray, C.W. (2000) ‘In Memorium – Joan W Clark (Rust) 1908-1999; in BSBI Scottish Newsletter, 22: 12-13

Sturgeon, J. (2021) ‘SSSA in 70 Objects: Plants used in Traditional Shetland Medicine.’ Blog at libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk/sssa