The Library of Obscure Wonders

It is now spring and the cherry blossom is fully in bloom. Nothing can tempt me out of my flat quite so easily as cherry blossom, the simple beauty of which is spiritually uplifting in itself. Merely sitting and looking at cherry blossom is, I find, a very meditative pastime.

The other day, my friend Jill and I visited the blossoming trees in Kew Gardens. Playing amongst the trees were recordings from students of the Royal College of Music. it was beautiful and very relaxing; gentle, soothing, rolling sounds which fitted in wonderfully with the spring atmosphere.

Unfortunately, though, I’d gone and taken some CBD oil that morning. I was trying it out to see if it would help with my epilepsy; if it would calm me down. It didn’t work, however. An aura told me that there was a seizure coming on, so I sat down under one of the blossoming trees and tried to stay calm. My friend Jill, who was standing close by, grew a second face and four extra arms. She ended up looking something like a two-headed Kali.

It was scary, as seizures usually are, but I didn’t black out or have any breathing problems, which was good. Gradually, things calmed down and, some twenty minutes later, I was myself again, sat under the beautiful, blossoming trees with Jill, a retired art teacher and excellent sculptor. We went for a cup of tea.

It was a strange experience, both very relaxing and very scary at the same time. I won’t be taking CBD oil again! Earlier that morning, a large crow had flown straight at my window. I thought it was going to hit, but it turned at the very last moment. ‘It’s going to be a difficult day’, I thought. ‘But no need to worry. It will turn out well in the end.’

Folklore speaks of cherry blossom as representing new beginnings. In Scottish Highland folk traditions, wild cherry trees had mysterious qualities, and to encounter one was considered auspicious and fateful. For me, despite the weird experience on CBD oil, the blossom represents lazy days walking under beautiful petals. ‘Winter is over’, it says. ‘Enjoy the spring.’

There is a road opposite me which is lined with cherry blossom trees. I consider a quiet, slow stroll along this street as an opportunity for my body to recover from the busy rush of London. The human frame can be very good at healing itself, but needs time in which to do so. I think that the epilepsy is a means of my body resetting when I have worn it out with too much anxiety and ‘doing’.

to read more visit https://jofisherroberts.substack.com/p/cherry-blossom?r=2v814y

A grim morning in late January. The sky is overcast, the wind is bitter and London is a dark, dreary place. I’m holding a workshop at Lordship Park Community Hub. It feels like a long trudge to get there. January is such a cold, grey month in the city, my least favourite, but the hazel trees in Lordship Park are full of catkin and beautiful. How they cheer me up! 

Long, bright, yellow worm-like chains hanging from the trees. The word ‘catkin’ comes from the Dutch for kitten, because of the fluffy, ‘kitten tail’ quality they have. They are also known as lambs’ tails, and I suppose there is a similarity to a hanging, slighting dirty lamb’s tail. Hazel catkins have long heralded the coming of spring. These are the male flowers, and there can be up to around 240 tiny, individual blooms in one catkin alone. Catkins are common on woodland trees and can be found hanging on oak, poplar, birch and hornbeam.

Catkins and Cones Read on Substack

Mondays 6pm till 8pm

The course on Monday evenings at Imperial College, South Kensington, London, starts again on the 13th January. For both beginners and those with some experience, the course lasts 10 weeks and includes botanical illustration, trees in the landscape, fungi, insects along with colour mixing, using watercolours and colour pencils, using light and shade and the appearance of three dimensional shapes .

For more information and to sign up click here https://www.imperial.ac.uk/evening-classes/winter-courses-list/drawing-painting-nature-t2/

Join a friendly relaxed Botanical Drawing class under the expert guidance of Joanne Roberts, a Botanical Illustrator. No experience necessary! You can come for one, or sign up for all three classes to be held on Friday 22 and 29 November and 6 December. All materials will be provided. We will use plant and tree material from the Orchard and surrounding Park of Lordship Recreation Ground. The classes will be in the Community Room of The Hub, just near the Lake in the Park, off Higham road N17. Buy a hot drink and snack, or a full meal, in the Hub’s cosy Cafe. Pay what you can, with a suggested donation of £10 per class.

The Hub is off Higham road,  N176NU. Buses 230 or 341 run to Philip Lane nearby, nearest tube Tottenham Hale or Seven Sisters, or Bruce Grove Overground station. Or the 243 bus runs along Lordship Lane to the North, and you can walk through the Park towards the Lake.

Click here to book tickets – https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/botanical-drawing-classes-tickets-1060315655669?aff=erelpanelorg&_gl=1*1m3nxgs*_up*MQ..*_ga*MjE3MzE2NzEyLjE3MzAyMzU2MTI.*_ga_TQVES5V6SH*MTczMDIzNTYxMS4xLjEuMTczMDIzNTgxMy4wLjAuMA..

I was in a very grizzly mood last Tuesday. The cat woke me at six in the morning with vomit and diarrhea. Then the phone company rang to tell me I owe them lots of money, even though I’ve paid all my bills and my phone hasn’t been working for the last month. I was in such a bad mood that I decided I had to go to Kew Royal Botanical Gardens to cheer myself up. A friend had bought me a year’s membership to Kew as a birthday present, which is great because it is so expensive otherwise. 

I didn’t get there until 4 pm. I was in a foul mood when I arrived; it seemed crowded, there were aeroplanes flying overhead and, somewhere in the gardens, there were builders banging away. I decided to have a cup of tea and calm down. It was then that I noticed the ash tree, a big, beautiful weeping ash. It was just what I wanted to see, so I spent the next three hours sitting and sketching it. I studied its leaves, trying to draw all the details, and then the textures of its crumpled bark. A great way to spend a Tuesday afternoon, and I felt so much better!

I’m very aware that I describe most trees as beautiful (because they are), but the ash is particularly so at this time of year; beautiful in a delicate and regal fashion. My friend Louise calls the ash the dignitary of the woods. This is because the tree loses its dainty leaves earlier than any of the other trees, and is the last to grow new ones come spring, preferring to sort its seeds out first.

The narrow, finely toothed leaves of the ash face each other along the stem, so it doesn’t shade as much as the sycamore, but produces intricate, web-like shadows. The purple headed flowers, which have no petals, only stamen, cluster tightly together. Although it is often either a male or a female tree, there is a great deal of variation. One might change it’s sex over the course of a year, for example, or have a single branch that is a different sex to the rest of the tree, or, indeed, have flowers that are of both sexes. This has led to the ash being occasionally referred to as a hermaphrodite tree. 

To read more about the ash visit https://jofisherroberts.substack.com/p/the-ash-tree-and-yggdrasil

Lime trees can be seen lining many of London’s Victorian streets, often heavily pollarded to keep them smaller than they would naturally grow. For years I wondered why I never saw limes on these lime trees; it seemed I was missing something. Then I found out that lime trees never have any citrus fruit because they are completely unrelated to the citrus family. The reason they’re called ‘lime’ in the UK is simply a corruption of ‘linden tree’, which is what these trees are called in Europe. In America, it is also known as ‘basswood’. In the wild they can live for three hundred years (although some have been estimated at around two thousand), can grow very tall and have a girth of up to six metres. 

I foolishly promised my drawing students I’d make them some linden flower tea for their last class this term. Linden trees don’t flower for long, just a couple of weeks in June, and you need to get the flower while it’s still young. I was too late. The flowers I collected were just too old and battered to turn into a decent tea, so I cheated, finding some linden flower tea in my local grocery store. I took it to work and brewed the tea in an old cafetière that I found in a cupboard there. It was okay, my students said they liked it. I didn’t say that it was collected by me, but then I didn’t say that it wasn’t, either.

To continue reading visit Under the Linden Tree

https://jofisherroberts.substack.com/p/under-the-linden-tree

May is here. The weather is pleasant, so I decide to go out in search of a hawthorn tree. This is also known as the ‘May tree’, because it blossoms at the start of the month. I walk down to the canal near my home and search along the side of a towpath that is half maintained and half wilderness.

It is a nice walk, not too many cycles or joggers today, as it is still a little overcast. I stop to watch a swan majestically make its way across the water and between the canal boats. When I was younger, I used to dream of owning a canal boat. I even brought books on how to renovate and do them up. One of the reasons that I wanted a canal boat is that I’m actually allowed to drive one of those; I’m not allowed to drive a car because of the epilepsy. I thought at the time that this was a terrible hardship. An outlook which, indeed, the modern world would still encourage. 

Nowadays, though, I think it simply means that I’m privileged to walk – a lot. I get to see the trees and the plants and the rivers of the city, for London is officially a forest (According to a UN definition, it boasts a high enough percentage of trees to be a forest: https://www.timeout.com/london/things-to-do/did-you-know-that-london-is-the-worlds-largest-urban-forest)! I don’t zoom about in a car or on a bike all the time, which means I get to enjoy the city and appreciate its hidden wonders. The hawthorn tree is definitely one of these.

Back to my walk, and I come across several hawthorn bushes, all in full blossom, pale white with a touch of pink in the centre. A tiny spider crawls between the petals and leaves, its delicate threads of webbing almost invisible to the human eye. This reminds me of how useful hawthorn is to wildlife, from bugs to birds to mammals. Small birds feast off its berries and nest in its protective thorny branches. There is even a ‘hawthorn moth’ named after this tree.

According to an ancient myth, the hawthorn originally sprang from lightning and was associated with Hymen, the Greek god of marriage. It was a symbol of love, romance, fresh starts and fertility. A member of the rose family, it can grow in all sorts of places and can take very harsh conditions indeed, such as clifftops, scrublands and barren pathways. It was once seen as sacred and a protector of virgins, brides and pregnant women. In Turkey, a branch of hawthorn expressed the wish of a lover to receive a kiss. 

To read more visit https://jofisherroberts.substack.com/p/hawthorn

Twisting through the City

I was teaching my students how to paint ivy leaves yesterday. Ivy is a difficult plant to paint, with its dark, grey-green colour and white veins. I like how it often has a purple or crimson-ish stem which, if you look carefully, seems to twist around like fine snakes weaving in and out of each other.

Once apon a time I used to live in a basement flat with a garden, at the end of which was the railway track carrying the Piccadilly and District Line tube trains into London. There was an ugly concrete wall separating my garden from the long drop down to the track on the other side. A great mass of ivy grew up and over this wall in a fairytale fashion. I tried to encourage this ivy, but one day the railway workmen cut it down and threw it over to my side of the wall. 

Upon landing, the ivy curled over itself and formed a long tube. My dog Monty (a small terrier) loved investigating this tube and rummaging through it. Over time, the ‘ivy parcels’ continued to arrive and, eventually, my back garden became a maze of tunnels. I was impressed at how the ivy managed to stay alive, and indeed thrive, albeit in this tubular form.

Read full essay here