Watercolour illustration of nikau (Rhopalostylis sapida), Plate 2 in 'New Zealand Native Trees 2'.

Nancy Adams was one of New Zealand’s most prolific botanists, and a talented artist. She produced a vast number of botanical illustrations, which were included in widely-distributed and well-regarded books about New Zealand flora. One of these books is New Zealand Native Trees, a field guide published across two books as part of the ‘Mobil New Zealand Nature Series’.

In her introduction to New Zealand Native Trees (2), Adams provides beautiful and comprehensive descriptions of the three types of New Zealand forest - podocarp-mixed broafleaf, kauri, and beech - suggesting which species of tree may be found there and on which level of the forest they might grow. She also differentiates the second book of field guides from the first, writing:

Because many of the best-known tall forest trees have been illustrated in Native Trees I, emphasis is given here to some of the smaller trees of more open country. In many places there are roads that ascend through the forest to the shrub and tussock at and above the bush-line. Some of the trees most likely to be found within reach of these roads have been chosen.

The 32 species described in this book are illustrated with their own watercolour plates which depict the fully grown tree, the young tree, a branch of adult foliage, and an enlargement of the tree’s reproductive structures (i.e flowers, fruit or seed cones). These helpful visual guides are accompanied by rich and engaging text describing the trees’ appearance, reproductive patterns, and habitat preferences. These descriptions evoke both the precise scientific accuracy and the warm, often whimsical accessibility that was also the hallmark of Adams’ illustrative style.

In her description of nikau, she writes: