Lavishly illustrated with Christina's vibrant watercolours, A Wild Plant Year explores the cultural history, folklore and medicinal or household uses of many of Britain's best-loved wild plants. It takes us through a country year waymarked by special days such as Easter, Mothering Sunday, Hallowe'en and Winter Solstice and features the native flowers and plants traditionally associated with each festival or season.
Country names, plant legends and folk medicine have long been a special interest of Christina Hart-Davies, one of the country's best known botanical artists and illustrators. Her precisely detailed and accurate paintings perfectly complement the fascinating stories attached to our flora. Six years in the making, this is a celebration of the long heritage of our relationship with Britain's native plants.
Christina Hart-Davies is well known for her precise and accurate botanical watercolours, which feature in prestigious collections worldwide and have won many awards including four RHS Gold medals in the past. She has always championed the combining of art and science, looking at the natural world from different angles. Whilst working for over thirty years in both botanical art and botanical illustration she has drawn and painted plants of many kinds. However, her favourite subject is our own native flora. She has several times been commissioned to illustrate field guides to our wildflowers, most notably the Collins Flower Guide. Alongside her passion for illustrating Britain's wild plants with scientific accuracy she has spent many years researching their cultural, folkloric and medicinal history too. In A Wild Plant Year Christina brings together these skills and interests in a celebration of our long relationship with our native flora. Christina graduated in Typography from Reading University. Her design background is invaluable in her illustration work and influences the composition of her exhibition paintings. She is an experienced and popular tutor and enjoys encouraging people to find their own style in which to celebrate plants of all kinds.