Margaret Armstrong was from the Hudson River valley of New York; she explored the West as part of an extended adventure, but never settled here. She traveled from 1911 to 1914, often with two or three female companions, exploring all of the states west of the Rocky Mountains and into Canada. She was possibly the first woman of European descent to travel to the floor of the Grand Canyon, where she found, described, and illustrated several new plant species. The result of these adventures was the “Field Book of Western Wild Flowers,” published in 1915.
She had considerable training as an artist and is perhaps best known amongst bibliophiles for the over 300 book covers she designed, an art form mostly lost in the 20th century with the development of dust jackets. She also wrote biographies in her 60s, and mystery novels in her 70s! Her schooling was in art, but she understood botany practices very well, collecting and pressing some 1,000 herbarium specimens. Many remain in the New York Botanical Garden herbarium. She lists as her co-author, John James Thornber (1872-1962), professor of botany at the University of Arizona, crediting him and many others (including Alice Eastwood and Julia Henshaw) for assuring the accuracy of her text.
“But it is her illustrations that make the book so appealing,” according to a review by Bobbi Angell in the December 2018 issue of “The Botanical Artist.” These included some 500 pen and ink drawings and almost 50 watercolors, all drawn or painted on site. While there is a glossary of terms and a short set of keys, this book relies more on its illustrations for identification than the others in this review.
Excerpted from the Winter 2020 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin