Old Cottage Pinks - Tapa dura

Pinks are popular garden plants with an impressive history, having been grown for hundreds of years. They are found throughout the world and were a favourite in the United Kingdom, even before the reign of Elizabeth I, when they were grown to edge garden borders, to be picked for posies and made into bunches to be sold in the market. This is an attractive record of all those Old Pinks that Mary McMurtrie was personally able to find and paint. Although the collection is not complete, all the examples that she painted are gathered and reproduced here, accompanied by her own useful notes. Once again, the author has employed her considerable artistic skills to inform and delight her readers with the aid of more than seventy highly individual, yet wonderfully understated, watercolour drawings. This is a book to treasure and enjoy.

Mary McMurtrie (1902-2003) spent forty years running a nursery. She collected and painted the wild flowers of Scotland, the Algarve and Kenya, specialising in watercolours, and exhibitions of her work have been seen in Scotland, England and France.