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Overview
In her introductions to these books, Adams provides beautiful descriptions of several alpine locations around the country – including the Tararua Range, Canterbury, Taranaki, and Fiordland National Park – and suggests where and when mountain flowers might be found in these areas. She encourages readers to explore these ecosystems with care and admiration:
Please remember that in many places the mountain plants are protected and are not to be gathered. To sketch or photograph them is a pleasurable way of recording their beauty.
The watercolour illustrations and line drawings in these books are accompanied by rich and engaging text describing the flowers’ colour variations, habitat preferences, seasonal growth patterns, and how they may have gotten their common names. These descriptions evoke both the precise scientific accuracy and the warm, whimsical accessibility that was also the hallmark of Adams’ illustrative style.
This watercolour can be found on page 19 of Mountain Flowers of New Zealand (1965) and on page 18 of Mountain Flowers in New Zealand, illustrating a species of koromiko, Hebe tetragona. In Adams’ 1965 description, she writes:
There are many species of Hebe in New Zealand, ranging from small shrubs to trees 20 ft (6m) high. Both in the wild state and in gardens, they have crossed to give a variety of forms of complex parentage. The mountain species are low-growing, neat shrubs, with small flowers clustered together in spires or sprays of white or pink to pale violet. A group of alpine hebes with scale-like leaves are called "whipcords". Hebe raoulii, of the dry mountains of Marlborough and North Canterbury, was drawn from the Awatere Valley in November. The description of Hebe raoulii was modified for the 1980 publication where, on page 66 of Mountain Flowersi n New Zealand, Adams writes:
Some koromikos, mainly from open, rocky places in the South Island, have leaves with a toothed margin and sprays of pink or lilac flowers. Of these, Hebe raoullii is widespread in the dry mountains of Malbourough and North Canterbury. Awatere Valley; November.