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Complete your New Naturalist collection with Harper Collins's facsimile versions, which are printed on demand. Mountain Flowers was first published in 1956.
This is the first book ever published on the wild flowers of British mountains. Mountain Flowers to most people mean Swiss Alpines. The popularity of the European Alps among British holiday makers has undoubtedly caused the botanical riches of our own less spectacular mountains to be neglected.
Mr. Raven and Dr. Walters have now made up for this neglect in a New Naturalist volume based on their personal experience of flower-hunting in the hills of Scotland, Wales, Ireland and the Lake District as well as a wide knowledge of the scientific and historical background of our mountain flora.
If British Alpines cannot boast the wonderful sheets of colour that attract thousands every year to Switzerland, the rarity and individual beauty of many of the species provide an excitement of a different quality. Recent events have added a new edge to this excitement. During the last few years no less than five species hitherto unknown in Britain, or long thought extinct, have been found in Scotland, and the stories of their discovery are fully told by the authors.
The collaboration of John Raven and Max Walters epitomises the present healthy state of British field botany, in which team work between amateur and professional investigators is producing increasingly valuable results. Max Walters, joint author with the Botanical Editor of the New Naturalist volume Wild Flowers is curator of the University Herbarium at Cambridge and Director of the recently launched scheme, in which many amateurs throughout the country are taking part, for mapping the detailed distribution of the whole British flora. John Raven also works at Cambridge; he is a Fellow of King's College and is an authority on Greek philosophy. For many years he and his father, Canon C. E. Raven, have studied and painted British plants, and are now among our leading amateur authorities.
"A first class companion. I have no hesitation in advising all mountain-climbing flower lovers and flower-loving mountaineers to put it in their rucksacks."
– R. S. R. Fitter, Birmingham Post
"This book is the first about British mountain flowers. Mr. Raven's guide-section to the best mountains and high districts is extremely tantalising and makes one wish to calculate miles at once on a road map"
– Geoffrey Grigson, The Observer
"Dr. Walters discusses the nature and origins of our mountain flora in a chapter which is as gripping as a detective story to anyone who knows the hills and their flowers. Nearly half the book consists of general discussion and the reader should not skip a word of it."
– Bruce Campbell, Oxford Mail
"It fully maintains the high standard of earlier flower books in this fine series. Dr. Walters and Mr. Raven make an ideal combination."
– The Times Educational Supplement
"Mr Raven is an excellent guide. He has something interesting to say about every plant he mentions."
– The Naturalist
"It greatly increases one's understanding, and therefore one's appreciation, of mountain flora."
– Scotland's Magazine
