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Overview
Nancy Adams was one of New Zealand’s most prolific botanists, and a talented artist. She painted an incredible number of botanical illustrations, using them to produce important books about New Zealand flora, seaweeds, mosses and trees. One of these books is Wild Flowers in New Zealand, Nancy Adams’ homage to the flowers often overlooked—dismissed as weeds, or too commonplace to be investigated with curiosity.
In her introduction to Wild Flowers in New Zealand Adams outlines her philosophy towards this kind of flora:
We are rightly concerned with the preservation of our native vegetation in all its forms, yet strangely blind to a most diverse and interesting flora made up of naturalised and native plants that is now found in all but the more remote areas of mountain, bush and swamp.
The fifteen full-colour watercolour plates are skilfully painted by Adams, accompanied by charming descriptive text. She includes rich descriptions of the flowers’ colours, the places they tend to pop up, and oftentimes their reputation among gardeners. Much like Adams’ botanical illustrations, Wild Flowers in New Zealand is a book that blends the whimsy and the precision of her approach to botanical illustration.
This watercolour is included in Wild Flowers in New Zealand as 'Plate 15'.
Clockwise from bottom left (finishing at the centre corn flower), here are Adams' descriptions of the flowers:
"Black-eyed Susan has been widely planted in seaside places, where it now forms extensive areas of brilliant orange on cliffs and hillsides when the flowers open in the hot sun.
Botanical name: Gazania splendens, South Africa. Family: Compositae."
"With flat rosettes of hairy leaves and creeping stems, hawkweed is abundant in dry tussock grassland in the South Island hill country. The flower stems have distinctive black hairs.
Botanical name: Hieracium aurantiacum, Central Europe. Family: Compositae."
"The white bush marguerite has colonised sunny banks and hillsides in mild coastal districts where in early summer the slopes become white as if dusted with snow.
Botanial name: Chrysanthemum frutescens, Canary Islands. Family: Compositae."
"Tall shasta daisies are locally abundant in waste ground, cemeteries and suburban roadsides. The white flowers are borne on long stems during the summer.
Botanical name: Chrysanthemum maximum, Pyrenees. Family: Compositae."
"Chicory is a straggling, branched herb often found amongst the tall grasses along country roads. It has a succession of sky-blue flowers on bare stems.
Botanical name: Cichorium intybus, Eurasia. Family: Compositae."
"Capeweed is found on dry sandy soils and poor open pasture near the sea. Its starry flowers open only in bright sunlight.
Botanical name: Cryptostemma calendula, South Africa. Family: Compositae."
"Marigolds have escaped from cultivation and persist in open sunny places. Marigolds have had a long garden history and have a traditional herbal use, particularly for food colouring.
Botanical name: Calendula officinalis, Europe. Family: Compositae."
"Corn marigold is a long-flowering, greyish-leaved shrubby plant found in open sunny places, particularly on banks and roadsides.
Botanical name: Chrysanthemum segtum, Mediterranean. Family: Compositae."
"Corn flowers are a favourite garden flower, associated in Europe with poppies and ox-eye daisies. As they seed freely they are now well established on waste ground.
Botanical name: Centaurea cyanus, Europe. Family: Compositae."