John Gilmour writing in his New Naturalist
classic, 'Wild Flowers', catches the lyrical aesthetic passion of
botanising.
"The
first step towards becoming a field botanist—as towards
becoming a stamp collector, a rock climber or a prima
donna—is to be visited by an irresistible passion. Like
Shelley's 'Spirit of Beauty', such passions are unpredictable in
their comings and goings.
'When
musing deeply on the lot
Of
life, at that sweet time when winds are wooing
All
vital things that wake to bring
News
of birds and blossoming,
Sudden, thy shadow fell on me;
I
shrieked, and clasped my hand in ecstasy!'
Without an experience of the shadow's fall and an answering
shriek of ecstasy no one has ever become a field botanist. The
great seventeenth-century naturalist John Ray described his own
awakening in the following words: 'First the rich array of
springtime meadows, then the shape, colour and structure of
particular plants fascinated and absorbed me: interest in botany
became a passion."
This essential passion may develop,
understandably enough, from the stimulus of family or friends, but
as often, perhaps, it arrives unheralded and
inexplicable—even against all reasonable probabilities.
