Flowers of Scotland

No, not that dreadful tune!  Mr Cornflower came to stay earlier this week, straight from Auld Reekie.  At first, I was disappointed, as flowers did not spring from the pavement where his feet had trod, and epigrams did not crystallise from the air around his brow.  But he came laden with books, one literally about flowers, and both figuratively flowers of Scotland.

First, there was a kind gift of Flora Celtica, an interesting account of "plants and people in Scotland"; slightly more informal than Flora Britannica, but rather wider ranging in its account of traditional uses of plants, and covering the whole gamut, including seaweeds.  Great fun! The cover shows the Burnet rose Rosa pimpinellifolia, which they call 'the white rose of Scotland', although it grows freely across all of Britain ("in dry sandy places near the sea, or calcareous areas inland" says Flora Britannica - not habitats I associate much with Scotland, I confess).  There is excellent material on traditional trees and their uses, and the types and names (cuddie, scoo, or maun, for example) of woven baskets, to pick just two fascinating areas.

And then there were Alice Howlett's poems, seen here with books by her publisher and the author from whom she draws her title.  Don't you love the Tusitala edition, with its South Seas name, its gold page edges, and its intense respectability?  A really fine book to read about Stevenson in the South Seas is Alberto Manguel's dark and  beautiful Stevenson Under the Palm Trees.

Alice's poetry has impressed me since I read Edinburgh (New Town) a year or so ago  - here are a few lines:

I survived the winter on a cache of photographs from July,
when months of rain had grown the gardens wild, making
the Dean Valley an emerald rift in the basking city,
shoals of light alive in the canopies of silver birch and lime.

The pictures are dappled with glare. Light flows
white-hot between leaves, suffuses like honey,
plays upon greenery in thousands of shades,
adorns with sequins the towering willows.

I kept that day, pinned it above my desk to remind me.
Autumn marched through and swept out, pulling
winter down on our heads as it left. Edinburgh turned her colours,
faded to sedate grey, but blazed still at late afternoon.

This, and the other poems in the book, are most accomplished, and I recommend them to you - and remember her name, you'll be hearing it again, I've no doubt.

Comments

[Mr Cornflower]

I usually have to stay in anonymous hotels when visiting London, so it was a great pleasure to stay with a friend I have known for so long - in your case books furnish not only a room or indeed a house but a life of thought and action. We wish you much joy of this florilegium.

[Peter the flautist]

Three splendid books indeed, and I do so agree with the prediction in your final sentence. Dark Puss is about to take the sleeper to the Heart of Scotland, where he hopes to see the flowers (including the Cornflowers) too. You may be pleased that his muddy paws will be absent from your weblog for a fortnight at least!