Treasures in my botanical archive
Some of my favorite books surround my desktop like a fortress. There is a stack of seaweed references, a pile of California native plants books, and a mix of gardening, conservation and geology resources. That desktop collection doesn’t include all the volumes on writing, chemistry, and oceanography on cypress bookshelves nearby.
Typically, I haul a book or two on my diurnal trek from bedside to desk and back again in the evening. Lately the poetic Native Treasures by M. Nevin Smith has inspired dreams of my own native plant garden in bloom. The book was a gift from the personal library of Phyllis Norris, an inspiration in her own right.
“For as long as I can remember, California has held me in its spell. Living in any other state, I would probably have found something wonderful in its natural landscape, and certainly in its natural flora. But I think I would have been drawn far beyond its borders searching for more. Not so with California, for it is a vast domain in every way, holding endless surprises for anyone willing to go out and experience them.” —M. Nevin Smith
Another favorite is The Curious World of Seaweed by Josie Iselin. Her words reflect my own sentiments, but her art outshines anything I create.
“I love seaweed because it is gaspingly beautiful. My photographer’s eye is in love with its palette of colors, from olive green to golden brown to deep purple. I am turned on by its crazy shapes and forms, some reminding me of the mid-century look of my youth—think Marimekko—but many without any comparable translation in our terrestrial world.” —Josie Iselin
John Muir is another recent companion from three hundred books that a dear friend left when she set off to find love in Colorado.
“There is always something deeply exciting, not only in the sounds of winds in the woods, which exert more or less influence over every mind, but in their varied waterlike flow as manifested by the movements of the trees, especially those of the conifers…The waving of a forest of the giant Sequoias is indescribably impressive and sublime, but the pines seem to me the best interpreters of winds.” —John Muir, Wind-Storm in the Forests
And then, there are gems from my friend, the diligent dumpster-diver, who retrieves and sends me unexpected gifts like the 1931 Geology of Ben Lomond Mountain by A.A. Fitch and the 1925 Soil Survey of the Salinas Area, with its gloriously colorful fold-up map. I pulled the map from the back pocket of the pamphlet and located the tiny dot on it—the site of an 1880 homestead—our home. In a blink of the eye (okay, perhaps 40 blinks), the huge map was framed and hanging on my wall.
I really should give some of these books to other readers. The young educators at Watsonville Wetlands Watch might welcome books on sloughs and wetlands. I could box up some of the Edwin Way Teale collection and mail them to Colorado. And maybe re-gift Fitch’s booklet to Alex Hubner who shared insights into California geology and plants in his February talk in Santa Cruz.
These references have been my guides, but the bonds formed and lessons learned from the artists, writers and botanists in our community are the enduring treasures.