A}OHN CLARE FLORA M.M. MAHOOD TRENT EDITIONS A JOHN CLARE FLORA Trent Editions Trent Editions aims to reproduce and republish landmark texts in handsome and accessible modern editions. Trent Essays Writers on the craft and context of writing Series editor: John Goodridge (Emeritus Professor of English, Nottingham Trent University) Jim Burns, Beats, Bohemians and Intellectuals, ed. 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Trent Editions Trent Editions aims to reproduce and republish landmark texts in handsome and accessible modern editions. A John Clare Flora M. M. Mahood Foreword by Richard Mabey Trent Editions 2016 For further information please contact Trent Editions, School of Arts and Humanities, Mary Ann Evans Building, Nottingham Trent University, Clifton Lane, Nottingham NG11 8NS, or use your internet search engine to find our web page. Published by Trent Editions, 2016 Trent Editions School of Arts and Humanities Mary Ann Evans Building Nottingham Trent University Clifton Lane, Nottingham NG11 8NS © This edition: M. M. Mahood 2016 The rights of the author have been asserted. Designed and typeset by typesoflight Printed by imprintdigital ISBN: 978-1-84233-159-0 Front cover image: Pasqueflower,Pulsatilla vulgaris, still surviving at Barnack despite ‘the plough that destroyer of wild flowers’ having ‘rooted it out of its long inherited dwelling’; see p. 36. Photo: Bridget R. Smith. Contents Acknowledgements vii Abbreviations ix List of Illustrations xi Foreword xv Introduction 1 PROEM: LICHENS, ALGAE AND MOSSES 17 FERNS AND THEIR ALLIES 20 CONIFERS 25 FLOWERING PLANTS – DICOTS 29 FLOWERING PLANTS – MONOCOTS 159 Principal Sources 187 Index of Poems 193 Index of Plants 203 vii vii Acknowledgements My thanks go first to Richard Mabey for his interest and encouragement when this book was no more than a stark list which I hoped I might be able to transform into a small sister of his splendid Flora Britannica. At that stage I had no first-hand knowledge of Clare’s part of the country, so my first task was to discover how many of the flowers on my list could still be found there. Chris Gardiner, Natural England’s Senior Reserves Manager in the area, and Jean Stowe, a committee member of the Langdyke Trust, both responded to my enquiries with invaluable species lists, and Jean also with her husband Iain’s and her own skilful photographs; David Broughton, a Vice-county Recorder for the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland, supplied me with up- to-the-minute information about the rarer flowers; Sheila Wells went out on my behalf and found some of them growing just where Clare said they did; from the start the late Peter Moyse shared with me his knowledge and appreciation of the landscape, trees and flowers of Clare’s countryside. To all, my thanks. Jean Stowe also put me in touch with the late Bridget Smith, whose combination of a lifelong pleasure in our native flora with a deep appreciation of Clare’s poetry has been an inspiration to me ever since. Moreover, it was Bridget who prevailed on her former colleague in the Nature Conservancy Council, Philip Oswald, to scrutinise my draft manuscript. I am profoundly grateful to him for the scholarly accuracy and meticulous attention to detail that have saved me from a number of blunders (any that remain will be my oversights) and also for the zest with which he has provided titbits of botanical lore to liven up the more humdrum entries. Subsequently he took on the tasks of editing my text, compiling the index of plants and making the final selection of photographs from a substantially larger number that I should have liked to include. Other botanists who have generously and knowledgeably responded to my out-of-the-blue appeals for information are Clive Stace, Evelyn Stevens, Christopher Grey-Wilson and Andrea Wolfe. viii ix Because my chief concern throughout this project has been with Clare the poet, I am especially grateful to Eric Robinson who – among other kindnesses – has allowed me to quote freely from his monumental Oxford English Texts edition of the poetry. I have addressed many queries about Clare’s scientific friendships and his reading to Bob Heyes, whose unfailingly helpful replies have been rich in relevant detail; and when it came to viewing Clare in his wider social and literary setting, I have been especially privileged in having John Goodridge’s input while preparing this volume. For information about Margaret Grainger, whose work on Clare as naturalist has not had the attention it deserves, I am indebted once again to Eric Robinson, and also to Paul Foster, Tim Chilcott and Simon Chandler. I am also grateful to Sam Ward for his input and for designing and typesetting the book. I am most sincerely grateful to all those who supplied the beautiful photographs that adorn this book – Iain Stowe (IS), Philip Oswald (PHO), Jean Stowe (JS), Peter Moyse (PM), Bridget Smith (BRS), Peter Payne (PIP) and Barbro Jones (BJ). ix Abbreviations agg. aggregate By Himself John Clare: By Himself, ed. Eric Robinson and David Powell (Ashington and Manchester: Mid-Northumberland Arts Group and Carcanet Press, 1996) Druce George Claridge Druce, The Flora of Northamptonshire (Arbroath: T. Buncle, 1930) EP The Early Poems of John Clare 1804–1822, ed. Eric Robinson and David Powell, associate ed. Margaret Grainger (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), two volumes GW2 Gill Gent and Rob Wilson, The Flora of Northamptonshire and the Soke of Peterborough (Rothwell: Robert Wilson Designs, 2013) Grigson Geoffrey Grigson, The Englishman’s Flora (London: Phoenix House, 1975) Letters The Letters of John Clare, ed. Mark Storey (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985) LP The Later Poems of John Clare 1837–1864, ed. Eric Robinson and David Powell, associate ed. Margaret Grainger (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), two volumes, pagination throughout Mabey Richard Mabey, supported by Common Ground, Flora Britannica (London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1996) x xi MP John Clare, Poems of the Middle Period 1822–1837, ed. Eric Robinson, David Powell, and P. M. S. Dawson (Oxford: Clarendon Press), volumes I–II, 1996; volumes III–IV, 1998; volume V, 2003, five volumes in all NH The Natural History Prose Writings of John Clare, ed. Margaret Grainger (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983) sp. species (singular) spp. species (plural) ssp. subspecies SSSI Site of Special Scientific Interest var. variety Wells Terry C. E. Wells, The Flora of Huntingdonshire and the Soke of Peterborough (Upwood, Huntingdon: Huntingdonshire Fauna and Flora Society and T. C. E. Wells, 2003) xi List of Illustrations Plate 1: Some woodland flowers of the spring Bluebells and Early-purple Orchid (PHO) Lords-and-Ladies (PIP) Bluebells (IS) Plate 2: More woodland flowers of the spring Herb-Paris (PHO) Common Twayblade (IS) Lesser Celandine and Primrose (IS) Plate 3: Further flowers of the spring Lesser Celandine (IS) Fly Orchid (IS) Cowslips (IS) Plate 4: Spring trees and shrubs Pedunculate Oak (PM) European Larch (IS) Blackthorn (JS) Plate 5: Rare flowers of grassland Green-winged Orchid (IS) Burnt Orchid (PHO) Pasqueflower (BRS) Plate 6: More grassland plants Adder’s-tongue (IS) Bee Orchid (IS) Common Eyebright (IS) xii xiii Plate 7: Hedgerow shrubs and climbers Dog-rose (IS) Old-man’s-beard, the fruits of Traveller’s-joy (IS) Hawthorn (IS) Plate 8: Some flowers of wet places Yellow Iris (IS) Yellow Loosestrife (PHO) Meadowsweet (PHO) Plate 9: More flowers of wet places Purple-loosestrife (PM) Ragged-Robin (JS) Marsh-marigold (IS) Plate 10: Further flowers of wet places Great Willowherb (PM) Water Dock (PHO) Flowering-rush (PHO) Plate 11: Some heathland flowers Harebells (PHO) Betony (PIP) Gorse (BJ) Plate 12: Some flowers of Barnack Hills and Holes Clustered Bellflower (PHO) Dark Mullein (JS) Ploughman’s-spikenard (PHO) Plate 13: More flowers of Barnack Hills and Holes Man Orchid (PHO) Autumn Gentian or Felwort (IS) Greater Knapweed (IS) xiii Plate 14: Summer flowers Common Poppies and Cornflowers (PHO) Scarlet Pimpernel (IS) Common Rock-rose and Wild Thyme (JS) Plate 15: Some examples of folklore Common Poppy capsule with its ‘straw bonnet’ (PHO) Greater Celandine or ‘wart weed’ (JS) Common Mallow, a flower and a ‘cheese’ (BRS) Plate 16: Wintertime Spurge-laurel (BRS) Lichen on a tree trunk (JS) Winter Aconites (IS) Plates are between pages 92 and 93. xv xv Foreword Molly Mahood’s The Poet as Botanist (2008) is one of the seminal books on ‘the relationship between biological thought and the poetic process’. Its lightly-worn scholarship and mischievous humour perfectly express her theme that the best of poetry is a kind of science, truth forged out of a marriage between incisive observation and imaginative insight. John Clare is in many ways the hero of the book, and Molly quotes the poignant self- description he had inscribed on the back of his portrait – ‘Bard of the wild flowers / Rain-washed and wind-shaken’.