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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.
Adams was a very skillful watercolourist, as can be seen in this delicate painting. On the back of the paper there are a couple of cat's paw prints - suggesting that she was working at home and left the paint tray out, for a friendly companion to walk across.
This watercolour is included in Wild Flowers in New Zealand as 'Plate 6'.
Clockwise from the left flower, here are Adams' descriptions of the flowers:
"Bermuda buttercup is neither a buttercup nor from Bermuda. In warm districts it is a showy but persistent weed of cultivated or open ground, with glistening yellow flowers opening in the sun.
Botanical name: Oxalis pes-caprae, South Africa. Family: Oxalidaceae."
"Wallflowers are often found growing wild on sunny banks, cliffs and stony shores, a habitat that in this country replaces the dry masonry walls of Europe's old buildings. The bronze or yellow flowers have a strong, sweet scent.
Botanical name: Cheiranthus cheiri, southern Europe. Family: Cruciferae."
"The little heartsease pansy has been a favourite cottage garden flower since Elizabethan times and is one of the ancestors of the modern pansy. It seeds freely and appears in pavements, on banks and in open ground, flowering in summer.
Botanical name: Viola tricolor, Europe. Family: Violaceae."
"Of the many kinds of introduced buttercups, the handsome, winter-flowering celandine is found in very damp places. Two distinct forms occur; the smaller with speckled or blotched leaves grows beneath trees and the larger with thick, glossy leaves is found in ditches and seepages. Both have shining yellow flowers and fleshy, club-shaped roots.
Botanical name: Ranunculus ficaria, Europe. Family: Ranunculaceae."