PATIENCE AND ZEAL

New Zealand Listener, Volume 25, Issue 634, 24 August 1951, Page 12

PATIENCE AND ZEAL

THE COMING OF THE FLOWERS, by A. W. Anderson; Williams and Norgate. English price, 10/6 BOTANICAL EXPLORERS OF NEW ZEALAND, by Rewa Glenn; A. H. and A. W. Reed, 10/6. é A RETROSPECT OF FLOWERS, by Andrew Young; Jonathan Cape. English price, 10/6, HESE three books deal with more or less the same subjects-the origins or discoveries of plants-but deal with these subjects in different ways. Mr. Anderson, who is Curator of the Timaru Botanical Gardens, takes the flowers in his garden as he comes upon them, and tells their /nistories with a great deal of zest and ‘evident enjoyment. His book has no index and no particular order, and is clearly meant to be a casual book of interest and pleasure to flower lovers and gardeners; but with so many odd and fascinating snippets and paragraphs _of information it seems a pity that there is not a full index. As it is, it can be recommended to readers interested in gardens and in the strange and adventurous origins and discoveries of some of our common or uncommon plants. Miss Glenn gave a series of radio talks on the botanical explorers of New Zealand and adapted the material to make

this beok of 170 pages or so. A dozen photographs and two colour plates have been added. In this space there are chapters dealing with more than twenty explorers and discoverers, including such patient’ and zealous men as Colenso, Banks, Cockayne and Kirk, These introductions of outlines should help to stir some readers to an interest in the native plants thems¢lyes or to a full study of the work of some of those indefatigable botanical searchers. The index is a mere list of words with rows cf figures (and in several cases the page-references lead to a dead end, there are spelling wariations, and omissions); the maps of North and South Islands would have been improved by the use of a more orthodox lettering system--river names, especially Waimakariri, look strange upside down. An old list of plants observed in youth and minutely noted in a copy of Johns’s Flowers of the Field gave that sharpeyed nature poet Andrew Young all the impetus he needed to write a companion to his book, A Prospect of Flowers. His Retrospect is a record of his plant observations over many years. He explains that he collects plants simply by searching for them, finding them, ahd looking carefully at them; and by these methods, he says, "I hope to die one of the richest men in England." He has found that his well-known habit of looking, not picking, brings privileges: jealous botanists take him secretly to see the most rare plants or even give him directions for finding them-but Mr. Young makes it clear in a note that he will not part with such information to any inquisitive reader. This is the book of a scholar and poet in a tradition more inquiring than Wordsworth’s. Mr. Young takes rather too much pride in not being a botanist; yet his botanical observations on various plants are often as apt and sometimés as erudite as his quotations from a hundred poets. Here again the lack of a good index will be regretted by many readers who may want to know just where to find that appealing reference to crocus, or dandelion, or oak, or yellow

gagea. Never mind, in this case re-read-ing is more enjoyable than first-reading.

J.