Pressed Flowers

[Tantalus]

This sounds like one of those silly Victorian things that have absolutely no place in todays internet culture but.................

As a youngster me and my brother and sister went on a holiday to the island of Mull, and Mum and Dad offered a prize for the best pressed wild flower book

It rained every flipping day for 2 weeks but all 3 of us with or without parents were out scavenging for wild flowers to add to our collections

Evenings we spent arguing over flower identification guides and whether this flower was or was not the flower in the book

We pressed the flowers in between the pages of a notebook and put them under the matress overninght

Each one when identified was carefully stuck to a page and labelled with a name

Now years later I suddenly realise that I know and recognise quite a few wild plants and flowers with little or no effort having learned as a youngster what to look for

I think we all got a prize lol but surely the biggest prize of all is being able to spot and recognise wild plants and flowers for the rest of my life

Worth a try for everyone with kids , Worth a try if you are struggling to learn plants yourself too

One of the nicest things is having a home made reference book, and a few memories too

Much more satisfying than looking stuff up on the internet

Please be aware though some plants are rare and should not be picked, but a field guide should point these out to you too

Tant

 

[Povarian]

Definitely a good way to learn plant identities, but and it is a very big BUT...

As you point out, it is illegal to pick many species of wild flower, and bad news for an increasing number of our endangered species. Of course, if you can identify which species are endangered, then your knowledge already exceeds what you're trying to achieve.

Far better to use a digital camera to aid in learning what's what, or if that isn't an option, a sketch book. Incidentally, observing and sketching are a couple of skills that also can be useful for the rest of life.

Anyone got any other methods of learning plant identification esp. applicable to young children.

 

[Toddy]

Hi,
I still use pressed flower and leaf notebooks. Usually the specimens are included inside my herbals and I frequently draw illustrations of specific parts of the plants too. I've tried with my digital camera, and though useful, I find the images are just not as memorable.
That said,
http://www.countrylovers.co.uk/hort/edgrflwr.htm
is the link for the list of endangered, i.e. *Don't Pick!*, plants for the UK.
I make bookmarks, using sticky backed book covering, over the flowers and light weight cardboard, as a quick activity with young children as a good 'aide memoire' of plants.

Cheers,
Toddy

 

[Povarian]

Thanks for posting the link - good to have a definitive list at hand.

 

[ChrisKavanaugh]

Protective laws can be often self defeating. Bromeliads from Mexico and Central America cannot be imported, yet developers and drug growers bulldoze them by the acre. I was doing an archaeological survey at the end of the famous ' Santa Suzanna Pass Road' of Charles Manson infamy in Simi Valley where the Reagan Presidential Library is. There were perhaps 36 specimens of a very ugly,small grey-green plant that looked like an african violet without flowers. Somebody I.D.ed it as the Santa Suzana smog plant, ironically a natural producer of organic oils that become airborne. The bulldozers were literally gunning their deisels and for some perverse reason I rescued all 36 . The 'dozers illegally cleared the lot that afternoon before we even filed our report ( no cultural resources were found.) But it turned out the smog plants were a protected species and limited to all of maybe surviving 80 individuals in that one small area. The state biologist arriving an hour late contacted us to give dispositions as the last trained observers before the massacre. Somebody finally put the dots together. " Oh, those ugly little weeds? Kavanaugh took them home. Rumours flew in my nieghborhood about the big 'pot bust' with a government van removing hundreds of marijuana plants Another possibility is to join any groups propagating endangered or native plants for reintroduction and aslo heirloom seeds for our rapidly disappearing biodiversity of crop plants too.