This is a special and beautifully illustrated book of botanical fantasy. I was unsure at first whether any of the background story was real, which makes it even more intriguing. Sadly it all appears to be fictional!

The first section of the book is a biography of Lady Elizabeth Hurnshaw, the ‘lady botanist’ whose illustrations these are supposed to be. In the 17th century, she and her son found themselves in a fantastical place called Amarant, or Atlantis. The line between flora and fauna was blurred. Moreover, there was a plant that could give immortality to two people in true love. Elizabeth married the king, but she accompanied her son back to England so he could choose whether to take his rightful place at Hurnshaw House. They were denounced as sorcerers. Before her brother-in-law could do away with them, they vanished and were not heard of since. Hundreds of years later, Una Woodruff and a writer called Morticia Adams discovered Elizabeth’s notebooks and have curated them into this book!

Some of the illustrations are sketches, with parts of the plants and their growth stages labelled. Others are colourful paintings, sometimes with mythical creatures or marvellous buildings behind the plants. My favourites are the dragon vine, dillocorn (a merger of armadilloes and sweetcorn!), a tiger lily with actual tiger faces, and a sunflower whose seeds are ladybirds. It’s really a coffee table book or collector’s item, rather than a story book, as it’s mostly illustrations.

Published by Dragon’s World, 1981.