1 ‘The usual experience’: Michael Foley, Orchids of the British Isles, Griffin Press, Cheltenham (2005), p.114. The most up-to-date history of the Ghost Orchid in Britain is Cole, ‘History and status’, as cited in the References
2 ‘parasitic piggyback’: Fortey, ‘Ghosts in a beechwood’, p.172
3 ‘To be honest’: I cannot trace the source for this quotation, though in my notes it comes under Cole, ‘History and status’
4 ‘funny men in gaiters’: Fortey, ‘Ghosts in a beechwood’, pp.170–71
5 ‘crept stealthily’: Forty & Rich (eds), The Botanist, 2nd June 1926, pp.99–100
1 ‘The draughtsman’s aim’: Martin, Concise British Flora, Preface, p.7
2 ‘desire to know’: Martin, Over the Hills…, p.44 (1968). He repeated the remark in Concise British Flora, Preface, p.8
3 ‘a mass of flower’: Martin, Over the Hills…, p.54
4 ‘my fiancée’: ibid, p.68
5 ‘This method’: ibid., p.70
6 ‘walked miles’: Martin, Concise British Flora, Preface, p.8
7 an autobiography… ‘of quiet charm’: Wilfrid Blunt, Sketches for the Flora, Michael Joseph, London (1972), Foreword (no page number)
8 ‘rather noticeably’: David Elliston Allen, Books and Naturalists, William Collins, London (2010), p.445
9 I totted up: Among the more surprising omissions were Scented Agrimony, Creeping Speedwell, Annual Mercury, Common Thyme and Common Reed.
1 ‘we commend botanising’: Martin, Concise British Flora, Preface, p.8
2 ‘gateposts with leaves’: Oliver Rackham, concluding words in Trees & Woodland in the British Landscape, Dent & Sons, London (new edn 1990), p.208: ‘Conservation is about letting trees be trees, not gateposts with leaves’
1 ‘neither documented’: Fred Rumsey, ‘A review of conservation actions for Bromus interruptus with recommendations for future progress’, unpublished report to Natural England (2014)
2 ‘slide imperceptibly’: Miles Kington, Nature Made Ridiculously Simple, Penguin Books, London (1984), Preface
3 ‘air anemone’: Grigson, Englishman’s Flora, p.338
4 ‘bursts out along’: Theophilus Jones, A History of the County of Brecknock (1805), quoted in Craig y Cilau, leaflet by Countryside Council for Wales (undated)
5 ‘Knowledge… makes extinction’: Mabey, Common Ground, p.30
6 ‘I feel like digging it up’: Comment in Mail Online re ‘Rubbish-filled ditch beside roadside burger van named as one of UK’s 10 most important wildlife sites’, www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1352489 (2011)
7 ‘pastel shades’: Mabey, The Cabaret of Plants, p.28
8 ‘cream touched with’: ibid, p.305
9 ‘hopping with delight’: ibid, p.306
10 ‘The undisturbed nature’: Halliday, Flora of Cumbria, p.442
11 ‘The crag is a place’: Alfred Wainwright, A Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells, Book 6: The North Western Fells, Westmorland Gazette (1964)
12 ‘all colonies are threatened’: J. Wright, ‘Polygonatum verticillatum’, in Wiggington (ed.), British Red Data Books: 1. Vascular Plants, p.294
13 ‘I never take a photograph’: Obituary of Robert Moyes Adam by J. R. Matthews, cited by Carluke Parish Historical Society, www.carlukehistory.co.uk
14 ‘like old rock-roses’: John Raven in Raven & Walters, Mountain Flowers, p.137
15 ‘would not dally’: D. A. Webb, ‘The hey-day of Irish botany 1866–1916’, The Scottish Naturalist (1986), pp.123–34
16 ‘the most hostile environment’: Jepson, ‘Skye’s the limit’, pp.31–3
17 ‘an apparently endless scree’: Raven & Walters, Mountain Flowers, p.134
18 ‘doubtfully native species’: Pearman, ‘Far from any house’, pp.271–90
19 ‘warm sweetness’: ‘The Lake of Lilies’, in Gerald Durrell, My Family and Other Animals, Rupert Hart-Davis, London (1956), p.218
20 ‘Twelve plants introduced’: ‘Schoenoplectus on the Tamar Estuary’, unpublished report by Panscape Environmental Consultancy (2014)
21 ‘Then a sentimental passion’: Bunthorne’s song in Gilbert & Sullivan’s Patience (1881), Act 1