Nature Studies By Michael McCarthy

Marsh Gentians

© Photographs by Robin Mills

Nature Studies

By Michael McCarthy

An incomer’s discovery of the natural world in the West Country

Many of us harbour dream invitations. They differ widely. For some, it might be a Buckingham Palace garden party; for others, Would you like to be my guest in my box at Manchester United? might fit the bill, or perhaps Come to lunch—it’ll be just you, me and Paul McCartney. But for most of us, I think, there is a summons somewhere in the imagination which sets bells ringing, so I hope you do not think I am exaggerating when I say that I felt that sort of excitement, when our friend Anthony casually said: Would you like to see the marsh gentians?

Gentians are a family of flowers which have some of the allure of orchids, in that they are mostly uncommon, and very beautiful: they are usually dark blue or purple. We have about eight species in Britain (depending on whether or not you count subspecies) and you will struggle to find them in many basic wild flower guides, although you can see them all painted on Plate 59 of The Concise British Flora in Colour, the magnificent encyclopaedia published in 1965 by the Church of England clergyman William Keble Martin, which became an instant best-seller. (Keble Martin was 88 at the time of publication—he had spent 60 years drawing and painting every native British wild plant.)

The commonest and most familiar of our gentian species is probably the autumn gentian, Gentianella amarella (avoidance of confusion note: Keble Martin refers to it by its old name of autumn felwort.) The marsh gentian, Gentiana pneumonanthe, you are much less likely to stumble across. For one thing, it has a specialised habitat: wet heaths. Dorset has plenty of heaths but most of them are bone dry; wet heaths are commoner in the New Forest, which is a marsh gentian stronghold. But Dorset does have a few damp places where this exquisite rare flower can be found, and our friend Anthony knew of one of them.

He is an antiques expert, with a marvellous eye for man-made things, but he also has a sharp eye for the beauties of nature, and as an inveterate walker has discovered many of the treasures the landscape of Wessex has to offer; for example, he alerted us to the walk from Kingston to Swyre Head, where you get to the top of the hill and gasp as suddenly the whole Jurassic Coast is laid out in front of you. The gentians Anthony knew of were quite a long way from our home village: my wife Jo and I trailed his car for more than half an hour to a lonely layby in the middle of a large area of heathland, and then followed him on foot to a damp depression the size of a football pitch which was clearly the requisite patch of wet heath. (I have to say, if you didn’t know it was there, you probably wouldn’t find it.) And eventually, we came across the flowers.

They were wonderful. Part of their charm was that they were half-hidden amongst the grasses, rushes and clumps of heather, so finding each one felt like an achievement, and also there was the sense of privilege at seeing such a rare bloom. But the biggest attraction was the colour, a vibrant and intense deep blue, standing out against the murky greens and browns of the heath. Some of them were darker still and I was put in mind of the lovely, melancholy poem DH Lawerence wrote at the end of his life, probably contemplating his approaching end. It’s called Bavarian Gentians and it imagines the flowers as torches of darkness, which can guide him down into the underworld.

It was an unforgettable experience. Anthony has known their location for decades and kept the secret. And believe me, I’m not knocking the garden party at the Palace, the box at Man United, or lunch with the great Beatle—I’d accept any one of them—but his invitation to that lonely piece of heathland is something I would choose above them all.