A Floral ABC

by Elizabeth Cameron

This floral alphabet, by an award-winning horticultural painter, consists of intricate watercolors of Scottish wildflowers and hand-lettered annotations on each flower's name and habitat and the superstitions surrounding it.

Genres: Nonfiction

58 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1982

Reviews

[Mir · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although presented as an ABC book this this really a guide to wildflowers aimed at more advanced readers. The text is is small in size, complex in content, and hand-written in calligraphy (as well as not particularly sparkling -- Cameron is an artist, not a writer) and would certainly be too difficult for a child at the alphabet-learning stage. I suppose with a younger child one could skip the text and just pair the names of flowers with pictures, although even that would probably not be too engrossing unless one lived in the area where these flowers grow. Otherwise they are unfamiliar plants with long, unfamiliar names and places. "I picked this Jack in the Pulpit at Old Allengrange," eg.

Cameron made this book by hand, for her grandchildren, and I'm sure for them it was lovely and reflected places they knew and associated with their beloved grandmother. For a general audience I would recommend this more for people interested in wildflowers or botanical illustration than for children.

[Noctvrnal · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a lovely little book. Beautifully illustrated and charming through and through, this book taught me quite a bit about wild flowers. Elizabeth's stories and rhymes to accompany the flowers were also wholesome and often tastefully cheeky. A book for all cottagecore lovers.