Britain鈥檚 Rare Flowers by Peter Marren, Academic Press,
拢29.95, ISBN 085661114X
THE genius of Britain鈥檚 Rare Flowers lies in the way Peter Marren
interweaves state-of-the-art science with the drama of the hunt. This book is a
landmark in the global green movement. 鈥淣atural history鈥� is being reinvented,
and not before time.
In a narrative that is both witty and scholarly, Marren declines to jump onto
any soapbox. There are many reasons for the rarity of a flower, he explains:
each plant has its own story. And this excellent writer, who has amassed years
of experience in plant conservation, tells those tales as nobody else could.
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Marren gently exposes the disasters that bedevil well-intentioned but
under-researched conservation schemes. A running theme is the need for
knowledge: grassroots knowledge so that people start to notice what is growing
under their feet, coupled with specialist knowledge garnered from long-term
field work which reveals the arcane needs of each wild species. Without this
base, he suggests, conservationists can make embarrassing mistakes.
He recalls, for instance, the sad day that volunteers clearing encroaching
scrub on a nature reserve chopped down the wild cotoneaster, the rare bush they
were meant to be making space for. No one had thought to tell the volunteers
what it looked like. And contractors hired to do a bit of clearing work by
conservationists put paid to the two best specimens of what may be Britain鈥檚
rarest tree, Wilmott鈥檚 whitebeam. Not so many years ago, well-meaning
conservationists fenced off the adder鈥檚-tongue spearwort, a rare member of the
buttercup family growing on an open muddy pondside, only to find it strangled by
matted grass a few years later. Luckily, a few specimens persisted outside the
fence, where cattle still kept the grass down.
Not that Marren is opposed to interventionist conservation. He actively
supports recovery programmes, such as the 鈥淏ack from the Brink鈥� schemes set up
by Plantlife, the British wild-plant charity which over the past ten years has
organised scores of management projects to benefit rare flora. Indeed, one of
Marren鈥檚 most engaging chapters tells of his hunt鈥攁t Plantlife鈥檚
behest鈥攆or the elusive ground-pine. Rare plants are vulnerable because,
like most of us, they hate change, he explains. They are attuned to a lost world
of shepherds, horses, traditional farmers, labourers and low-tech machines. 鈥淲e
must now find substitutes from our own world of conservation volunteers,
contractors, power tools and management agreements.鈥�
Marren is more wary of dramatic bids to rescue endangered plants by growing
them in greenhouses for 鈥渞eintroduction鈥�. The practice is seductive, he
says鈥攁kin to rescuing a cat up a tree. But should it become a substitute
for 鈥渙n-site鈥� conservation of wild plants, he says, 鈥渢hen we have moved from
being conservationists to gardeners鈥�.
The extreme example is Britain鈥檚 lady鈥檚-slipper orchid, which has been
reduced to one guarded specimen in the wild. Its 鈥渞ecovery鈥�, writes Marren, 鈥渉as
involved micropropagation, fertiliser, cages and slug pellets; it has in fact
received more `gardening鈥� than any prize-winning rose or hothouse orchid鈥�. Under
threat is the concept of wildness itself.
鈥淔or many naturalists, wildness means a sense of `otherness鈥� and free
existence outside the human domain, whether the plant鈥檚 habitat is a mountain
top or a hedgerow,鈥� argues Marren. 鈥淚t is this intangible `otherness鈥� which
becomes threatened when we wade in too boldly with trowels or technological
paraphernalia.鈥� The unspoken challenge facing today鈥檚 conservationists, he
believes, is to find 鈥渢he restraint, the humility, to say to ourselves: thus far
but no further鈥�.
Why care about rare plants? Marren is too original to chunter on about
abstractions such as 鈥渂iodiversity鈥�. Instead, he describes how these plants hang
on for dear life. What makes rarities so interesting, he shows us, is how they
manage to be rare and yet survive. Read this book: it鈥檚 that rarity, a real
tour de force.