Welcome to Litsy!

3/5⭐ The author has some great thoughts/ideas, but they're buried in an onslaught of historical names presented in so cursory a manner as to be uninteresting. #bookspinbingo

Despair is not a great motivator, but hope is.

No piece of nature is insignificant and all of it is worth memorializing.

"... what I have realized is that life itself is an optimistic process. It is about regeneration and forward movement, about growth and change. The imperative of life is an imperative of optimism, and I don't think this inherent spirit of optimism needs to be subverted because life on Earth is in a very grim period. We can't merely focus on what is gone or disappearing. We also need to pay attention to what continues."

1 - holiday plans are the same as everyday plans: reading
2 - Helen Humphreys; Miriam Toews; Ali Smith
3 - Door of Solitude and Almonds

Any of my followers can consider themselves tagged 😊
#wondrouswednesday

Absolutely beautiful! Listening to this book was like a big hug with lots of learning.

#netgalley #nfn2021

Helen Humphreys draws connections between plants and people in astute, quiet, poetic ways—seeking out the stories of collectors who contributed to the Fowler Herbarium in Kingston, where she spent a year looking through over 140,000 specimens. This fascinating & contemplative literary work is the result. #CanadianAuthor

A visit to the herbarium is an exquisite kind of time travel. And by learning more about the intersection of people and nature in the past, I hope to gain some understanding of where we can go from here.

Herbarium specimens are the physical vouchers for the world as it was.
—Deb Metsger, curator of the Royal Ontario Museum Green Plant Herbarium

The observations that I have made of the natural world last in my mind because they were hard won. They were gained by hours and hours of watching or walking, hours and hours of looking but not entirely seeing, until the moment when some new piece of knowledge swam into consciousness. These moments of clarity are perhaps one of the greatest pleasures of being a sentient animal.

Just as I am drawn more to the character of some people, I also prefer the character of particular flowers, and in Queen Anne‘s lace, I prefer there to be space between the blooms and the umbrels, for the head of the flower to have an open appearance, the “lace” loose enough to see through to the field grasses below.

The air was churning with coloured birds and the wheel of their songs.
(Internet photo)

Drawing is mostly looking, or an excuse to look long and hard at something. Francis Hallé, a botanist who also draws, says, “The extended time required for drawing amounts to a dialogue with the plant… Drawing represents the work of human thought.”

'Before water was used as ballast for ships, mud, rocks, and earth were shovelled into the hulls from around the harbour where a ship was launched. Seeds and plants were often included in the mix, and when dumped out upon arrival ... these plants took root and thrived. Many of the invasive species in North America were introduced here as “ballast waifs.“ Now many of these ballast grounds ... have become archaeological sites.'

#til #nfn2021

This world is a world of disappearing species, but it is also still a world of wonder and beauty. And while we must all do more, and petition our governments to do more about the climate crisis, and not ignore the fact that humans are responsible for the destruction of species and habitat, we must also celebrate what is still here with a ferocious reverence.

I can‘t reconcile the rareness of an individual orchid with the brown mush they invariably become when pressed and mounted. For the first time it occurs to me that I might prefer some plants over others, and the characteristic I seem to favour is for a particular plant to retain its shape and texture, to look the same whether it is alive or 150 years dead.

You can see my reading habits: lots of flagged passages, and reading multiple books concurrently. It‘s a joy.

The Greeks and the pre-Celts both envisioned chicory as a devoted maiden, waiting for her lover to return. The blue of the flowers was meant to be the colour of the eyes of the maiden, and the flower has come to symbolize faithful love, or waiting in vain.

My nephew decided to be a mushroom man for Halloween.

I was captured within the first few pages of reading this as Humphreys writing is beautiful and brimming with imagery. So much research and work went into this book. I loved learning about all the plants. Humphreys has written such a facinating look into a world a bit forgotten nowadays but a special part of our natural history that needs to be remembered and cherished. #bookreview #canlit

What hadn‘t occurred to me before I began looking through the herbarium notations and the collectors‘ field books was that some scientists were better observers than others, just as some artists are.

Lichens are a combination of a fungus & an algae, and are the witnesses of the natural world, in that they do not change through the seasons. […] lichens are being used to measure the effects of pollution on the environment. A lichen can be thousands of years old, growing in the spot it has always grown & registering within its cells the changes that have occurred in the atmosphere over time.

This morning walk I take through the woods and fields with my dog and a friend has become crucial to my physical and mental health. Without it, I have difficulty handling all the stresses of this world, and all of the losses that have occurred in my own life.

There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.
—Li-Young Lee, “From Blossoms”