Each Little World

Flora Mirabilis: A beauty of a botanical book

"Tis the season for looking at the latest books and looking back at the year's best books in time for holiday giving. No matter how much I publish — and read — on the Web, nothing beats a book in the hand. A beautiful publication like the recently released "Flora Mirabilis" is a great example of why I can still be hooked on a new garden book. Despite the hundreds of gardening books I already own (I stopped counting at 196 with 5 shelves still to go!), there is always room for a worthy addition. 

"Flora Mirabilis" — the title alone is enough to catch a gardner's eye. But the glossy black cover with a red and green Jamaican dogwood and red and green marblelized endpapers might be enough to seal the deal. "Flora Mirabilis" — subtitled "How Plants Have Shaped World Knowledge, Health, Wealth and Beauty: An Illustrated Time Line" — is a joint project between two venerable and highly respected institutions, National Geographic and Missouri Botanical Garden. As such, it has the scholarship to match the wealth of incredible botanical illustrations that appear on every page of the book.

    

 Missouri Botanical Garden    

    

"Flora Mirabilis" is divided into six concepts and time periods: Origins, Discovery, Exploration, Enlightenment, Empire, and Science. Each section opens with a double-spread illustration, followed by a one page introductory essay and a double-spread timeline. Within each of those six sections are double-page layouts on the noteworthy plants of the given era. Date palm, wheat, rice and the olive are the plants of the Origins era (Prehistory to 1450). 

While it is an excellent idea to highlight such plants, it can be disconcerting to be reading along in the middle of a sentence and then turn the page to what initially looks like a new section. It takes a couple of minutes to figure out how the book is organized and that you just need to turn the page again to find the continuation of your text. Once you've realized that, then you can jump around randomly to read about your favorite introductions.

The text is straightforward and highly readable and — with a subject such as this — touches on almost any aspect of plants that might interest you: myths, medicine, art or adventure. Of course, the book includes a formidable index, as well as a list of titles for further reading and the source of all the illustrations. You can read "Flora Mirabilis" as a serious study or just have fun looking up all your favorites to see what the book has to say about them. You'll find entries on everything from African violets to American ginseng, from yams to yews, along with Dr. Seuss, Johnny Appleseed, Thomas Jefferson and one of my personal favorites, Queen Hatshepsut. (She organized the first known botanical expedition). 

    
 

At 256 pages, the book is not an unmanageable tome. In fact, author Catherine Herbert Howell and the two organizing institutions, beautifully manage an almost impossible feat in pulling together such a vast trove of information and illustration. And at $35, it's a bargain that belongs on the bookshelf of every gardener. You can purchase the book directly from National Geographic here.

Disclaimer: National Geographic contacted me about reviewing this book and provided a copy as recompense. The opinions expressed here are my own.

Thanksgiving bouquet

All through the holiday season gorgeous bouquets are beckoning at florists and grocery stores. But I try to keep making my own arrangements directly from the garden until the last possible moment. While there is not enough left in my garden to create the huge arrangements of summer, there is still plenty to augment something purchased at the grocery store. Here I used a lacy 'Redbor' Kale as the store-bought starting point, and then walked around the yard picking and clipping. The quickest and easiest part of the whole Thanksgiving prep!  

HAPPY THANKSGIVING FROM OUR HOUSE TO YOURS!

Plants include Epimedium, Annabelle Hydrangeas, and the giant fuzzy leaves of Heuchera vilosa 'Brownies.'

Monster maple leaf

The dry, warmer-than-usual days we've had this November have allowed us to work later in the garden than in recent years. We've continued to rake up leaves, cut down perennials and cage the "rabbit candy." When Mark was on recent yard duty, he found a fallen maple leaf that was so large I dubbed it the "maple leaf as big as my head." A leaf that spectacular couldn't be ignored. So, herewith, for your delectation, is our maple leaf documentation: 

 

     

    

 

    

Finale

 

Finale

Lone leaf

lingering on the branch

until a breeze sets it

fluttering,

flittering,

floating downward

onto a silvered sea of siblings.

All poised skyward —

Tracing their final flight from home to here.

    

This is one of my assignments from the Aboretum Corps of Discovery workshops, called "The Language of Landscape." I was given the word "fluttering" and had to use it in describing landscape. As with many of the class assignments, I used our garden as the inspirational landscape.

Fabric feast online at last

A veritable fabric feast is finally ready for you to dig in and digest it. Now — no matter where you live — you can see almost 8,000 of the 13,000 items in the Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection (HLATC). As HLATC curator Maya Lea puts it, the famed fiber resource at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has been  "unlocked" for global public access to both images and cataloging information. It is up and running in a digitized, searchable database which you can access via the HLATC homepage. As a "friend" of the collection, I can only join with Maya and her staff in saying yippee! The two pieces displayed here give you a tiny taste of the riches you'll discover.

Hat: 1950-1997. Indus Kohistan, Pakistan. Extensively embroidered and embellished female child's hat constructed from black cotton.  (Copyright: HLATC / UW) 

And, as always, if you live in the area there's a long list of upcoming fiber events to enjoy:

January Book Discussion: The Lady and the Unicorn

Date and location TBA. Free. Set in 15th-century Brussels, this novel by Tracy Chevalier contains lots of information about tapestry-making. There will be a tapestry technique demo, a short talk on the Unicorn tapestries, and a discussion of the book. 

Crocheted-Bag Workshop

Sunday, February 14 AND Sunday, February 28, 1:00-3:00 p.m. (2-session class)

Location TBA. Cost is $30 members/$40 non-members, advance registration required. Local legend and master crochet artist, Betsy Tuttle, will teach you how to make a reusable shopping bag of her own design from durable reclaimed fiber (provided). No previous crochet experience is necessary; limited to 15 participants. 

Caring for Your Textiles Workshop

Sunday, March 7, 1:00-3:00 p.m. Location TBA. Free

Learn how to properly care for your textiles to preserve them for the future. The HLATC’s assistant curator and collection manager, Diana Zlatanovski, will offer practical guidelines for the care and storage of your own textiles at home. 

Watch the events listings on the HLATC homepage for more specifics on these and other events.

Arpillera: 1973-2000.  Arpilleras were created by women in Peru. The tradition began as a response to the brutality of General Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship which began in 1973. (Copyright: HLATC / UW) 

Pods in the parlor

Once upon a time, I thought the pods from Locust trees were rare and magical. I called them "happy charms." I'm sure it was because there were few Locusts in my neighborhood which gave the trees a sense of mystery and cachet.

Now I'm the proud possessor of three large Locust trees and all the leaves, pods and windfall branches that entails. Though they can be messy, I love my Locusts. And never more than in the years — like this one — where they are loaded with seedpods. 

I watched the pods developing all summer, like bunches of elongated, twisting green bananas. By the time they started showering down in October, they were burnished to a rich patina. 

If I were a trendspotter who worked for the famed British paint company, Farrow and Ball, I'd name a paint color after these pods; perhaps "Moleskin" or "Autumn Velvet." If I worked for the American paint company, Benjamin Moore, then I'd call my paint color "Bitter Chocolate" or "Burnt Sugar." But no matter what you call these pods, I am in love with their luscious color.

 

As always, once the pods start coming down, there are too many to just leave them to compost in place on the ground. So I picked them up in fat fistfuls, marveling at the size variations and the velvety softness.

I stopped when I had enough to fill a large hand-made wooden bowl. As soon as I perceived the pods as natural objects worth collecting and displaying, they ceased to be a nuisance. And picking them up became a pleasure rather than a chore. 

 

Now they're souvenirs of the slow turning of autumn towards winter — on display indoors like the treasured objects of someone's 19th century "Cabinet of Curiosities."