Keyword: Reviews

In the late 19^th century in western Canada there were two women who, while not sisters, had a lot in common.  Much of their stories are found in “A Delicate Art: Artists, Wildflowers and Native Plants of the West” by Mary-Beth Laviolette.

Mary Schäffer Warren (1861-1939) and Mary Vaux Walcott (1860-1940) were both of Quaker families living in Philadelphia, arguably the center for science and culture in America at the time.  They both developed strong interests in the natural world, and developed the skills to paint in watercolors the native plants they found.

They joined a trip of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences to the Rockies and Selkirk Mountains of eastern British Columbia and western Alberta in 1889, traveling together part of the way on the top of a box car!  They brought this same adventuresome passion to hiking and exploring the peaks, returning every summer for many years.

The pathways of the two Marys eventually diverged.  Mary Vaux Walcott continued visiting the region every summer, but typically in the company of her two brothers, who were interested in studying the glaciers.  As the only daughter, at age 20 she was expected to look after her father and brothers after the death of her mother.   As Laviolette writes, the three siblings had “many summers spent in the western alpine, and for Mary in particular a lifelong commitment of over forty years in the area.  To come were the pleasures of mountain rambling and backcountry camping in addition to the study of wildflowers and, on an entirely different scale, glaciers.”

Walcott finally broke this pattern by getting married at age 54 to Charles Doolitte Walcott, who she met in the mountains, and who was the head of the Smithsonian Institution.  Together, they intensified their study of native plants, resulting in the publication of the five-volume “North American Wild Flowers” from 1925-1929.  The Miller Library has only volume five of this set, with 76 of the 400 original prints, but all are reproduced in the 1953 publication “Wild Flowers of America” and most are part of a splendid new (2022) collection “Wild Flowers of North America.”  These later publications are both in the library’s general collection.

While titles suggest a comprehensive collection of the native, flowering plants of the United States and Canada, the emphasis is on the places where the Walcotts’ explored.  The Canadian mountains and foothills fill in for much of western America, including our state, while the other emphasis is the Atlantic seaboard.  The southwest species are mostly missing, but these are still impressive works.

Excerpted from the Winter 2022 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin, updated June 2023

Catharine Parr Traill (1802-1899) and Susanna Moodie (1803-1885) were sisters who immigrated to Canada from England in 1832.  Both newly married, they were part of a movement of settlers from Britain seeking to escape poverty by moving to Upper Canada (now the province of Ontario), where they hoped to establish a prosperous new home.

The reality was quite different.  Although they settled within 50 miles of each other, the harshness of travel and limited communications prevented them from visiting each other for two years.  “Sisters in the Wilderness” is a biography by Charlotte Gray about the two sisters who both eventually thrived as authors in their new home, despite a bleak beginning.

The sisters had a relatively good start in life.  Gray described their household of six sisters and two brothers – all who lived long lives – as rich in books and creativity.  The family was related to Sir Isaac Newton and inherited much of his library.  But the father died young, and the family was left with limited resources.  Out of this experience, six of the siblings became published authors, a very unusual success rate spurred by necessity.

The two Canadian sisters were especially prolific.  Susanna Moodie is best known for “Roughing it in the Bush,” her 1852 book about her early years in North America.  Her work was the inspiration for modern Canadian writer, Margaret Atwood, in her 1970 book of poetry, “The Journals of Susanna Moodie.”

However, the focus of this review is on Catharine Parr Traill.  Named after the surviving, last wife of King Henry VIII of England (and a distant relation), she was a survivor herself, living to 97 and achieving a great deal of fame in her later life, primarily for her books about the wildflowers of Canada.  She was an avid field botanist and “took a serious interest in every aspect of a plant: its appearance, its life cycle, its medicinal and food value, its relation to other plants.”  She also recognized that the wild country in which she struggled to survive was beginning to disappear, and along with it many of the native plants.

To help with her research, she acquired a small library of books intended for professional botanists.  However, her goal was to publish a book for a more general audience.  She began by writing articles for both Canadian and American popular magazines.

Traill was an excellent observer and writing, but she lacked the artistic skills to illustrate the book she hoped to publish.  By the 1860s, her sister’s children had grown up and one of them, Agnes Moodie Fitzgibbon (1833-1913), was an accomplished painter.  Fitzgibbon also became a tireless promoter of her aunt’s book, signing up many buyers before the book was printed.  A young widow, she drew ten illustrations for the book and printed 500 copies of each.  She then engaged her three daughters, ages 16, 13, and 10, at their dining room table to hand color every one – a total of 5,000 illustrations!

“Canadian Wild Flowers” was published in 1868.  The timing was excellent, as it was just a year after Canadian independence.  Traill writes in the Preface: “With a patriotic pride in her native land, Mrs. F. [Agnes Moodie Fitzgibbon] was desirous that the book should be entirely of Canadian production, without any foreign aid, and thus far her design has been carried out; whether successfully or not, remains for the public to decide.”  This gamble was very successful as the book was indeed a popular expression of national pride.  The Miller Library has a facsimile of this book.

Traill’s contribution to this first book was in the form of narrative descriptions of the plants in the illustrations.  As this only totaled 30 species, the botanical information is limited, but the sumptuous illustrations ensured the book’s popularity.

Traill’s second wild flower book, “Studies of Plant Life in Canada,” was published in 1885 with the rich details of author’s significant knowledge of the native plants where she had now lived for over 50 years, roughly 100 miles northeast of Toronto.  Once again, her niece (now remarried and credited as Mrs. Chamberlain) provided the illustrations, but these are smaller and were printed using chromolithography, a relatively new process that eliminated the need for hand coloring.  Instead, the focus of this later book (in the Miller Library collection) is on the text with descriptions of over 400 species, including trees, shrubs, and ferns.

Excerpted from the Winter 2022 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin

In the late 19^th century in western Canada there were two women who, while not sisters, had a lot in common.  Much of their stories are found in “A Delicate Art: Artists, Wildflowers and Native Plants of the West” by Mary-Beth Laviolette.

Mary Schäffer Warren (1861-1939) and Mary Vaux Walcott (1860-1940) were both of Quaker families living in Philadelphia, arguably the center for science and culture in America at the time.  They both developed strong interests in the natural world, and developed the skills to paint in watercolors the native plants they found.

They joined a trip of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences to the Rockies and Selkirk Mountains of eastern British Columbia and western Alberta in 1889, traveling together part of the way on the top of a box car!  They brought this same adventuresome passion to hiking and exploring the peaks, returning every summer for many years.

The pathways of the two Marys eventually diverged.  Warren married her first husband, Charles Schäffer, who she met in during one of these summer trips.  He was an avid amateur botanist and together they continued their study of the local flora with the intent of publishing a field guide, using his text and her illustrations, both color paintings and black-and-white photographs.

Sadly, Charles Schäffer died before the book was completed, but his friend and fellow member of the Academy, botanist Stewardson Brown, completed the text.  “Alpine Flora of the Canadian Rocky Mountains” was published in 1907.  It profiles 163 plant species including trees, shrubs, and ferns, but the focus is on herbaceous wild flowers.  The illustrations are lovely, but the book suffered by comparison to other popular field guides of the time by not quite satisfying either a professional or a general audience.  The text is brief in its description of the flowers and foliage, and lacks the lyrical treatment of the guide published one year earlier by Julia Henshaw.

After that accomplishment, Warren became more of an explorer.  Quoting author Laviolette, this “meant getting used to riding a horse, camping in all kinds of weather and travelling in the company of men who were neither family nor spouse.”  She eventually moved to Banff, Alberta, married her second husband, guide Billy Warren, and is best known today for her mapping and discoveries in what is now Jasper and Banff National Parks.

Like Warren, Mary Vaux Walcott continued visiting the region every summer, but typically in the company of her two brothers, who were interested in studying the glaciers.  As the only daughter, at age 20 she was expected to look after her father and brothers after the death of her mother.   As Laviolette writes, the three siblings had “many summers spent in the western alpine, and for Mary in particular a lifelong commitment of over forty years in the area.  To come were the pleasures of mountain rambling and backcountry camping in addition to the study of wildflowers and, on an entirely different scale, glaciers.”

Walcott finally broke this pattern by getting married at age 54 to Charles Doolitte Walcott, who she met in the mountains, and who was the head of the Smithsonian Institution.  Together, they intensified their study of native plants, resulting in the publication of the five-volume “North American Wild Flowers” from 1925-1929.  The Miller Library has only volume five of this set, with 76 of the 400 original prints, but all are reproduced in the 1953 publication “Wild Flowers of America” and most are part of a splendid new (2022) collection “Wild Flowers of North America.” These later publications are both in the library’s general collection.

While this title suggests a comprehensive collection of the native, flowering plants of the United States and Canada, the emphasis is on the places where the Walcotts’ explored.  The Canadian mountains and foothills fill in for much of western America, including our state, while the other emphasis is the Atlantic seaboard.  The southwest species are mostly missing, but this is still an impressive work.

Excerpted from the Winter 2022 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin