Giant leaves & tiny snails
Image Creative Commons CC0 Attribution
2019 was a year when my love affair with plants finally came out of the closet. Having spent all my life gathering leaves, cones, and seeds wherever I went, I was painfully aware that I had been garnering a reputation as a crazy plant lady. My miraculous objet trouvé would be retrieved discreetly, then stuffed into the corners of anywhere I could hide them. This usually meant carefully wrapping them in handkerchiefs or inside a delicate lambswool glove, not only so I could surreptitiously sneak yet another specimen past my bemused family (who do not share my curiosity of all things verdant), but also to protect the silky linings of various handbags and pockets, and the surfaces of journals and sketchbooks therein. I failed on both counts: I could neither hide my treasures, nor prevent the marring of my precious accessories.
However, two things have saved me: a snail and a leaf. I had spent a day gathering leaves and cones as part of a course I am taking at the Scottish School of Forestry near Culloden Battlefield. The snail, the most immaculate perfect specimen I have ever seen, wandered across my desk after I finished recording my finds. This was truly, as we say in the Highlands, a mini beast. And the miniest unbeastliest beast you could ever wish to encounter: the entire thing, at full stretch, was the height of the Queen’s face on a five pence piece.
The next was the antithesis of the snail; huge, and by that I mean 5’ wide, leaves growing on Inverness Campus. Even the flower was as tall as I am. I watched the maintenance team as they cut them down in their Autumn clear up, and I pondered going to ask if I could have them. Then common sense kicked in: these things were wilder than me, taller me, and probably full of more types of bugs, microbes, and creepy crawlies than me. I resigned myself to just looking.
But it made me realise just how incredible all these things are - from the tiniest to the biggest - and that there really is no shame in my obsession. And now it is all out in the open I happily walk round with a small clear bag full of all my finds, and a pair of secateurs to snip off the occasional leaf or dried seed head when it is appropriate to do so. I have in the past few months acquired some beautiful specimens of weeds, pods, miniscule twisting vines, and dainty twigs. I have even found a few dead butterflies and moths seemingly struck down by the cold and strewn like sumptuous velvet confetti along woodland paths. I have kept these; I’m not sure what for, but if nothing else they are fascinating to look at and draw.
I had spent my whole life thinking I was being a little eccentric. But since I am no longer a secret stasher of natural things I have met many other people who share the same curiosity. Almost every time I have been out collecting recently, whether clutching a bag full of leaves and acorns or holding the desiccated stems of ground elder, I am stopped by people who want to talk about what I have found. Even more surprising is these people are often in their 20s and 30s, and quite a few are men. Not the demographic I would normally associate with this type of activity. They ask me about pressing leaves, and what I do with them, they tell me where they have seen certain plants or trees, and they share stories of how their fascination goes back to their childhoods (like mine). They talk about their ambitions to keep bees, or about the wasps that nest in their gardens, they share tips about propagating, and even recipes.
It is such a beautiful planet we live on, and all the little things we find are like tiny gifts that mark the seasons and remind us of the continuum, the ebb and flow of life: sometimes we grow, often we fail, but always at some point we blossom. And there is no need to keep any of this a secret.
Image (C) Gael Hillyard
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