Forget-me-not

With a lifetime’s interest in wildflowers, Liz Hamilton finds lockdown a time to revisit, and find solace in, her favourite books on British flora

- Liz Hamilton, Herts Campaign

At this time of year, I am normally out and about in Hertfordshire, photographing walks and places for Hertfordshire Life articles, and posting walking routes on the CPRE Hertfordshire website, cpreherts.org.uk. This year much of my exploration has been in my garden, where in recent years I’ve been gardening with wildlife in mind. As springtime has progressed and the days have grown warmer I’ve been out capturing images of plants and wildlife for the CPRE Herts website and social media.

I’ve also met up again with some old friends, my collection of floras – books describing and illustrating our wildflowers. I’m using them now to find interesting snippets of information about the plants I’ve been photographing. They also chart the history of my discovery of our native flora.

My early connections with nature came through my mother, who shared her love of wildflowers with me. We walked regularly in the countryside around our Radlett home and I picked flowers (certainly not approved of now but common then) to press and display in scrapbooks. Her flora of choice was the two-volume Handbook of the British Flora, known by us as ‘Bentham & Hooker’. I have the books on my desk as I write – one of text and the other with beautiful black and white illustrations. The main author George Bentham (1800-1884) was an English amateur botanist, who worked with the younger Joseph Hooker on a system for classifying plants. Also with Hooker, he wrote a number of foreign floras. His British flora was begun in 1853, first published in 1858, and later edited by Hooker. It was a popular student book for over 100 years with numerous editions.