{"id":6256,"date":"2021-11-29T16:35:11","date_gmt":"2021-11-30T00:35:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hortlib\/?post_type=book&p=6256"},"modified":"2023-11-04T13:24:28","modified_gmt":"2023-11-04T20:24:28","slug":"alpine-flora-of-the-canadian-rocky-mountains","status":"publish","type":"book","link":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hortlib\/book\/alpine-flora-of-the-canadian-rocky-mountains\/","title":{"rendered":"Alpine flora of the Canadian Rocky Mountains"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"In the late 19th<\/sup> century in western Canada there were two women who had a lot in common.\u00a0 Mary Sch\u00e4ffer 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.\u00a0 They both developed strong interests in the natural world, and developed the skills to paint in watercolors the native plants they found.<\/p>\n

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!\u00a0 They brought this same adventuresome passion to hiking and exploring the peaks, returning every summer for many years. Much of their stories are found in \u201cA Delicate Art: Artists, Wildflowers and Native Plants of the West<\/a>\u201d by Mary-Beth Laviolette.<\/p>\n

The pathways of the two Marys eventually diverged.\u00a0 Warren married her first husband, Charles Sch\u00e4ffer, whom she met in during one of these summer trips.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Sadly, Charles Sch\u00e4ffer died before the book was completed, but his friend and fellow member of the Academy, botanist Stewardson Brown, completed the text.\u00a0 \u201cAlpine Flora of the Canadian Rocky Mountains\u201d was published in 1907.\u00a0 It profiles 163 plant species including trees, shrubs, and ferns, but the focus is on herbaceous wild flowers.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The text is brief in its description of the flowers and foliage, and lacks the lyrical treatment of the guide<\/a> published one year earlier by Julia Henshaw.<\/p>\n

After that accomplishment, Warren became more of an explorer.\u00a0 Quoting author Laviolette, this \u201cmeant 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.\u201d\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Excerpted from the Winter 2022 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the late 19th century in western Canada there were two women who had a lot in common.\u00a0 Mary Sch\u00e4ffer 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.\u00a0 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…<\/p>\n

Continue reading Alpine flora of the Canadian Rocky Mountains<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","keyword":[305,1097,22],"class_list":["post-6256","book","type-book","status-publish","hentry","keyword-alpine-and-rock-gardening","keyword-native-plants-british-columbia","keyword-reviews"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hortlib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book\/6256"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hortlib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hortlib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/book"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hortlib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hortlib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"keyword","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hortlib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/keyword?post=6256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}