BRITAIN鈥檚 most original nature writer has produced a Domesday sort of a book, and one of our best hopes for forgiveness from generations to come. Richard Mabey鈥檚 Flora Britannica (Sinclair-Stevenson, 拢30, ISBN 1 85619 377 2) hows that for all the hideous damage we have done to the natural world, people in Britain in the 1990s do notice, and care about, the green life around them.
This beautifully illustrated book springs from Mabey鈥檚 own ground-breaking research, over five years, and from contributions sent in by thousands of people throughout Britain. The project, backed by the environmental charity Common Ground, has already stimulated many people to become social historians, says Mabey. Snowdrops thrive in the remains of monastic settlements鈥攑lanted apparently, by long-dead clerics. Autumn crocuses in Lancashire flourish on land once owned by knights who had been to the Middle East on crusades. It is a flora for our times鈥攁 record of what people today feel about plants. Cultural historians of the future will have a field day, searching through it for clues to late-20th century understandings of 鈥渘ature鈥�.
Throughout, modernity is mixed with a sense of the past. Marsh samphire, denizen of salt marshes and long sold by fishmongers in coastal towns, is moving upmarket鈥擟harles and Diana had it served at their wedding breakfast, delivered fresh from the Sandringham Estate. Horse chestnuts, so called because Turks used conker poultices to treat lame horses, were imported to Britain 500 years ago. Today, a pharmaceuticals company is poised to market an anti-inflammatory drug for sports injuries made from British-grown conkers.
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Flora Britannica is packed with wonderful stories. One of my favourites explains the forest of figs that grows along the banks of the Don in Sheffield. It turns out the trees germinated when, in the 1920s and 1930s, river water was used to cool the steelworks and fig seeds washed into the warmed river from sewage outfalls took root. Another involves a new children鈥檚 game with Himalayan balsam. It was introduced to British gardens in 1839 and now thrives, particularly along the waterways of the West Country. This plant produces large explosive seedpods that children 鈥渇ire鈥� to see which can propel its seeds farthest (12 metres is said to be the record in Cumbria). Mabey shows how much today鈥檚 children do attend to plants.
Mabey鈥檚 sense of history helps us to appreciate anew botanical 鈥渁lien invaders鈥� routinely pilloried in the press. The much-despised rhododendrons, for example, flourished in Britain before the Ice Age and so are only reclaiming what is arguably their natural habitat. Buddleia, the bush so beloved by British butterflies, arrived here from China in the 1890s. Its stronghold is the railway embankment鈥攖he ballast seems to remind it of its exotic stony habitat.
Sadly, over the past twenty years, the wild landscape has become reduced to a 鈥渢hing鈥� to be fought over by the warring camps of development and conservation. Even conservationists, says Mabey, have turned wild plants and animals 鈥渋nto commodities ranked according to their rarity鈥�, to be conserved in nature reserves. Meanwhile, in the US, there is a growing retreat from the wild, as green activists argue that nature is best left alone. Mabey argues in favour of 鈥渟mall-scale vernacular plans鈥�, and a way of living that is 鈥渘ot over-organised conservation, nor over-brutalised development鈥�.
In the many rave reviews of Flora Britannica, the headline writers have got it right: 鈥淭he people鈥檚 plants鈥�, 鈥淏uds of Mabey鈥� and 鈥淒efinitely Mabey鈥�. For me, this is the book of the year, if not the decade. Do read it, even if you think you鈥檙e not interested in plants. And buy it if you can.