Wild Flowers of Britain: Month by Month by Margaret Erskine Wilson, £8.99

President of Kendal Natural History Society and a well-respected local teacher, the late Margaret Wilson was also a very gifted watercolourist and botanist. In 1999 she donated 150 sheets of beautiful, detailed paintings of more than a thousand British and Irish flowering plants, all painted in the field, to the society. The collection had been started in 1943 after a friend had suggested she “might learn the names of flowers if you drew them for me, in the months they’re in flower.” After her friend passed away Margaret "repossessed” her “calendar” as she had called it and continued to add to it until 1990 when ill health no longer allowed her to continue.

Reading her notes it is possible to follow her travels around the British Isles, including where she found the rare Lady’s Slipper Orchid in bloom (with “Hush, hush” written in brackets!). There are also cross references to month of fruiting where flowers are illustrated and vice versa where the fruit has been painted. Skilfully edited by Judith Robinson, the whole collection is published for the first time in a beautiful hardback book with footnotes to Margaret’s own annotations, including full English names. Throughout, it is possible to see how her style developed over the years. Her accurate and informative illustrations, painted over a period of 45 years, still serves for us today Margaret’s original purpose, but it is much more than being an attractive way to learn the names of our delicate and beautiful wild flowers; it is something to treasure as a collection of artwork in itself.

It is one of those special books that you pick up to have a look at and simply cannot put it down again.

Exquisite.

CAROLINE REECE

WATERSTONES KENDAL