Brent Elliott, retired librarian and historian of the Royal Horticultural Society, declared that Frances Perry’s writing showed “evidence of reading both broader and deeper than that of most garden writers of the time.”
An example of this historical awareness is her book “Beautiful Leaved Plants.” Perry describes 64 house and conservatory plants, popular in the mid-20th century, but chose to illustrate her selections with images by Benjamin Fawcett (1808-1893). Fawcett was a botanical illustrator who used wood engravings, an unusual technique for the time that is particularly effective in capturing the brilliance and subtlety of foliage. The technique is described in a supplemental chapter by Raymond Desmond.
Excerpted from the Winter 2019 Arboretum Bulletin