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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 13'.
Clockwise from the left, here are Adams' descriptions of the flowers:
"The old-fashioned mauve or white-flowered honesty is frequently found where there is good moist soil with some shade. Their distinctive, round, silvery pods blow about when dry, thus ensuring a wide dispersal of the seeds.
Botanical name: Lunaria annua, Europe. Family: Cruciferae.
Roman lavender is widely grown along with other related aromatic herbs such as thyme, mint, pennyroyal and majoram, all of which have escaped from cultivation. Like thyme, Roman lavender prefers rather stony soils in areas with hot, dry summers.
Botanical name: Lavandula stoechas, Mediterranean. Family: Labitae.
Bugle, grown for its metallic or marbled leaves, is often discarded from gardens. As each joint along its creeping stem quickly produces a tuft of roots, plants very easily re-establish on damp waste ground.
Botanical name: Ajuga reptans, Europe. Family: Labiatae."