As a background, you may want to look for explanations of terms used on my the basics of botany blog, and fruit types.  What’s in a name 1 and part 2 discuss how Latin names work and why they matter. Some of the other families I’ve examined include the Ranunulaceae (Buttercups), Caryophyllaceae (Campions), Rosaceae (Roses), Fabaceae (Peas), Brassicaceae (Cabbages), with Asteraceae (Daisies), Orchidaceae (Orchids) and Lamiaceae (Dead-nettles) yet to come over the coming months.

Fool’s water-cress Apium nodiflorum

I am not a trained botanist, but a botanical illustrator and keen amateur.  So if you see a mistake, please let me know, thanks.

Wildflower families: Apiaceae

The Carrot family has 420 genera and over 3,100 species.  The flowers are held in distinctive inflorescences called umbels, are small, and have curved petals.  Leaves are deeply divided and sheath the stem (which is often hollow).  Fruit are a 2 celled schizocarp.  As well as Cow parsley, Apiaceae contain lots of herbs like parsley, chervil, dill, fennel, cumin and coriander.  Celery is also a member of the Carrot family.  Decorative garden plants include showy Eryngium.

Hemlock Conium maculatum

Economically, carrots and parsnips are vital crops, with the tap root being the edible part.  There are loads of wildflowers in this family, in the UK hedgerows are frothy and white with Cow parsley in early summer.  I dedicated a blog and a step by step youtube film to cow parsley, such a beautiful wildflowere.  Pignut grows in woodland, sanicle and wild angelica are common, and giant hogweed (an invasive – for more on this take a look at my blog) is easy to spot.

Poisonous plants like Hemlock and Water dropwort are members this family, and the sap of some other species (like the hogweeds) can cause skin irritations, especially when exposed to sunlight.

The poisonous Hemlock Water dropwort Oenanthe crocata

Apiaceae overview

Plants in this family have alternate leaves with wide bases that enclose the stem.  Leaves are mostly divided, often sub-divided several times (these divisions are known as being Pinnate).  This makes them look feathery and fern-like. The Marsh pennywort and Sea holly, however, have non-divided leaves.

Sea holly Eryngium maritimum

Flowers have five petals.  They are borne in compound inflorescences known as umbels, which look a bit like umbrellas, and the umbels may be further branched.  The schizocarp is a 2-celled dry fruit, vital for identifying an Apiaceae to species level.

Cow parsley Anthriscus sylvestris fruit

The name Apiaceae is based on the term Apium, coined by Pliny the Elder around 50AD, referring to celery-like plants.  This family used to be called the Umbelliferae, referencing the inflorescence shape.

Cow parsley Anthriscus sylvestris sketchbook study sheet

This family can be very tricky to key out to species as many look superficially similar.  Characteristics of the schizocarp including wings, markings, and even scent are frequently needed. The BSBI guide by Tutin is an invaluable aid.

Apiaceae Leaves

Apiaceae leaves are mostly divided and sub-divided.  This makes them quite tricky to illustrate.  Sometimes the leaves are so divided that they are almost linear, like dill.  In other species the pinnate sections are heftier, as with the lower leaves of the Hogweeds.  In many species, leaves at the base and higher up the plant are different shapes.

Persian Hogweed Heracelum persicum and Giant Hogweed Heracelum mantegazzianum comparison of lower leaf shape

Carrot family species don’t have stipules (leafy paired processes at the base of a leaf, present in other families like the Roseaceae).

Sketchbook notes on Cow parsley Anthriscus sylvestris leaves

The base of the petiole encases the stem, and is often inflated.  It can be flushed red, and some species have spotted leaf bases and stems (Hogweeds).  Stems are frequently ridged.

Leaves can be hairy or smooth, and often look pretty similar across species.

Apiaceae Flowers

Firstly, flowers of the Carrot family can be tiny, and are borne on the end of branches which grow from a central stem into umbrella-like umbels.  It’s worth seeing how many sub divisions of umbel branch you can spot as this can help identify a species.  The shape of the umbel is important, it can be highly domed or almost completely flat.

Persian Hogweed Heracelum persicum and Giant Hogweed Heracelum mantegazzianum comparison umbels

Secondly, the flowers have five free petals, which are mostly white.  They often curve backward, making each flower a little convex in shape.  Parsnip flowers, Dill, and some other Apiaceae are yellow, and you will often see one or two deep purple flower in the middle of an umbel (as with the Sea carrot Daucus carota gummifer).

Sea carrot Daucus carota gummifer showing distinctive one or two purple flowers in the centre of an umbel

Thirdly, most of the flowers in an umbel are regular, with radial symmetry.  Those on the outside edges are often irregular, with the outermost petals elongate and lobed.

Cow parsley Anthriscus sylvestris showing flowering head from above and inner flowers (on left) and outer ones (on right)

Fourthly, there are five sepals which do not fuse, and flowers have five unfused stamens.  These may unfurl at different times, and the anthers point inwards.

Persian Hogweed Heracelum persicum outer flower

Finally, they have inferior ovaries and two fused carpels.

Apiaceae Fruit

The schizocarp is a two celled dry fruit which splits at maturity into two mericarps and releases tiny seeds.

The schizocarp may have wings, be ridged, or have hooks.  Some have structures which make them easy to identify, like the Shepherd’s needle, with its’ long beaks on top of each fruit.

Sheperd’s needle Scandix pecten-veneris showing beaks on fruit

Each mericarp has five ridges, the outermost of which are the seams along which the mericarp splits.  There are often oil-canals called vittae between the ridges.

Persian Hogweed seeds showing vittae Heracleum persicum

The shape and position of all these features is quite variable, and vital in telling similar species apart.

Apiaceae: Roots

Carrots and parsnip are the roots of Apiaceae plants.  In the past, Pignut root was also foraged and eaten.  It’s these species with a swollen main tap root that have proved useful as food crops.

Wild Parsnip Pastinaca sativa

Conclusion

In conclusion, I hope my Apiaceae wildflower blog was helpful.  I’ll be doing more of these blogs over the coming months.  My references included my FSC botany course, the Common Families of Flowering Plants by Michael Hickey & Clive King, and the excellent Naturespot website.

Giant Hogweed Heracleum mantegazzianum

The post Wildflower families: Apiaceae appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

The Elder Sambucus nigra is common in hedgerows and woodland, and appears as a shrub as often as a tree.  It has strongly scented blossoms in spring, deep purple berries in autumn, and pale wood.

There’s an enormous amount of folklore associated with this species, and it’s a firm favourite with both foragers and those interested in herbal remedies.

Identification: Tree shape

Elder grows as trees up to 10m, or as shrubs.  Branches are often curved, and the wood is brittle.  Elder trees have short trunks or “boles”.  Compared to other tree species, elder don’t have loads of branches, and these grow from low down.

Elder tree

You often see Elder trees in thickets or scrubby woodland, or growing alongside streams with a variety of other species.  If an Elder is given space and light, it’ll grown into a tree.

Elder shrubs are common too as the species shows in both growth habits.  Lots of branches emerge at ground level, forming a thicket of a bush.

This species loves nitrogen-rich habitats, and will colonise anywhere where people have lived, or where nitrogen levels are high in the soil (such as fields where animals have been grazed).  It grows fast, and establishes itself quickly.  If you see a tree growing from a wall or in a farmyard, it’s very likely to be an Elder.

Identification: Leaves

Elder leaves are compound, that is made of lots of leaflets (for more on leaf shape, check out my blog).  In this case, there are 5 to 7 leaflets, with one terminal leaflet.  Leaflets are opposite each other.  Although the leaves have a relatively long stalk, each individual leaflet lies close to the stem.  Each leaflet is 3 to 9 cm long.

Elder leaf and pencil study

The leaves of Elder are oval and a bright pale green.  They’re toothed along the margins. (Click here for my blog on leaf veins and margins).

Elder branch with two compound leaves (each made of five leaflets)

The venation of the leaves isn’t very obvious, and is rather similar to that of lots of other oval leaves.  Side veins branch from the central mid-rib, and are mostly opposite one another.

Elder leaves

Some people think Elder leaves smell nasty, and although they do let off a pungent odour when bruised, I wouldn’t call it unpleasant.

Identification: Flowers

The creamy froth of elder flowers is instantly recognizable, by smell as well as by sight.  The smell is a heady perfume, and one of my favourite scents of summer.

Flowers cover the tree or shrub, borne in flat-headed umbels. Each umbel is 10 to 20 cm across; individual flowers are 5mm across.  Looking into the branching structure, you can see there are five main rays to each umbel.

Sketchbook study figuring out flower growth pattern

The flowers are closely packed, and have cream or white petals.  Anthers are a creamy colour too.  Each individual flower has five rounded petals, and 5 stamens.  Anthers protrude beyond the petals, helping the umbel look even frothier.

Small flies pollinate the flowers, which may explain why the scent of the blossom is so heady and heavy.  Elderflowers appear in May or June and will be in flower for 4 to 6 weeks.

Individual elder flowers

Identification: Fruit

Elderberries are shiny and black when fully ripe.  The branches they’re borne on are frequently flushed dark magenta.  Unripe berries are crimson.  Each berry is square-ish, and very juicy.

Sketchbook study of elder berries

It’s really common to see elder berries in partial umbels – lots of the berries will have fallen off or been eaten; the remainders look scruffy because of the empty stalks along side them.  They last well into late autumn, eventually shrivelling or falling in the frosts.

Working on an elderberry illustration

The berries are very rich in vitamin A and C and provide a vital food supply for birds and small mammals.  However, they are also quite sour, and both leaves and berries are rich in Hydrogen cyanide.  This can cause vomiting in people.  For a fascinating look at poisons in our everyday foods, check out this BBC Future article I stumbled on.

Identification: Bark

The bark of an elder tree is thick, smooth and corky; deep ridges develop with age. The branches are smooth, with pithy insides.  This pith can be removed to leave a hollow twig, and elder wood has been used for centuries to make whistles and musical instruments.

Twigs have obvious lenticels and are thick and greyish, or greenish.

The jelly ear fungus Auricularia judae is a brownish jelly-like fungus that often grows on elder and I use it as another way to identify the species.

Similar species

Some other tree species also have frothy white blossoms.  The Rowan does, but the flowers are far less scented, and the tree rarely grows as a shrub.  Guelder rose also has panicles of white flowers, but these are much larger blossoms and the leaves are a totally different shape.  The berries are orange and scarlet, never black.  However, as Guelder rose also forms a shrub, it’s worth a mention.

Guelder rose Viburnum opulus

Ash Fraxinus excelsior, Walnut Juglans regia, and Rowan Sorbus aucuparia  also have compound leaves, but the walnut leaves are arranged in an alternate pattern.  Ash leaves have more obvious veins and feel less “flat” than elder.  Rowan leaves are smaller and sharper.  All have toothed margins, but with a little experience you’ll notice differences between the shape and sharpness of the teeth.

Ash twig and leaves Fraxinus excelsior

History: Folklore

Like Hawthorn and Rowan, Elder is alive with folklore and history.  It’s interesting that all three of these trees produce highly visible white blossoms and distinctive colourful berries.  I guess they were easily recognized, common, and therefore very much in people’s awareness for millenia.

Elder has long been associated with “the little people”, and those who believe in faery folk will be very familiar with it.  If you were lucky, you might see the Queen of the Fairies passing by under an elder on Midsummer eve.  Lots of references advise against sleeping under an elder; this also relates to belief in other-worldly peoples.

Elder shrub

If you had to chop down an elder tree, you were supposed to ask permission from the Elder mother, a female spirit that inhabited the tree.

It was seen as a protective tree, and would be planted near houses and dairies.  Cheese cloths would be hung to dry on elder branches, and it was thought to prevent the milk form turning.  Interestingly, the elder leaves do repel flies, so these beliefs could have contributed to the hygiene of the dairy.  Herdsmen would carry elder switches.

Elder berries and leaves

However, there was a darker side.  A child beaten with an elder stick would never grow.  Judas Iscariot was said to have hung himself from an elder tree, and criminals were crowned with elder as a symbol of their shame.  Again on a Christian theme, there was a suggestion that the cross on which Jesus was crucified was elder wood.  It was not to be brought into the house, and if you burnt it you were sure to see the devil.  Witches could transform themselves into Elder.

The rule of thumb was to treat the elder with a healthy dose of respect.  And caution.

History: Food

The flowers of the elder can be used to make a lovely scented champagne, or fried as fritters.

Once heated, the berries can be reduced into deliciously strong-flavoured jams and jellies and syrups.

Illustrating elder berries

Flowers and berries are made into drinks and cordials.  Until 1900 you could buy spiced elderberry wine in the streets of London.

The most famous elder drink is the spirit Sambucca, made from elder berries and aniseed.  Traditionally, this is presented with one coffee bean and is set on fire as it’s served.

History: Medicine

Most parts of the elder have been used for medicine.  There’s some suggestion that even the ancient Egyptians used elderberries medicinally.  The medieval herbalist John Evelyn described elder as, “a kind of Catholicon against all Infirmities whatever”.

Berries are high in vitamins C and A, and (once you’ve destroyed the hydrogen cyanide by heating) are used to cure a plethora of conditions.  Sore-throats, coughs, respiratory problems – all were treated with elderberry syrup or “rob”.  They’re also a laxative, and diuretic.

The bark is a strong purgative.  Leaves can be crushed into poultices that are applied to bruises, sprains, and chill-blains.

Flowers are dried into tea and used to treat colds.  You can also wash your face in water soaked with elderflower to preserve your youthful looks.  Even today, elderflower is used in eye and skin lotions.  Some say that if you soak elderflower in cold water it helps relieve symptoms of hay-fever.

Adele Nozedar, whose books I illustrate, foraging for elderberries

Elder is rich in anthocyanins and antioxidants, both of which are known to boost the immune system.

Uses

There is a lot of pith in elder branches, which means when you hollow them out they make good musical instruments.  Children made small toys and penny whistles from elder wood.  The wood was also used to make pipes, pea-shooters and bellows.  Small spoons, and combs were sometimes made from elder wood.

The pith was used as a blotter, and to hold botanical specimens whilst they were being prepared for microscope slides or botanical sections.

Elder berries and leaves

Harder mature elder wood was sometimes made into cogs for machines.

The leaves contain natural fly repellent which probably explains why they were so often planted near houses and stables.

Finally, the elder is really useful as it produces a whole variety of different dyes.  The leaves give a green hue, flowers produce a lilac colour.  The berries make for deep and fade-resistant black and purples.  And even the bark was used to make black dye, used either for dying wool or ones hair.  The highly esteemed Harris tweed used elder to dye its’ materials, even though elder trees are less common in northern Scotland than in the rest of the UK.

Elder: Wildlife

The berries are eaten by birds and mammals, and the leaves are food for the Buff ermine, dot, White-spotted pug, and Swallow-tail moth caterpillars.  Insects drink the nectar from the flowers.  Voles and dormice eat flowers and berries.

Field vole Microtus agrestis

Threats

Luckily, not too many things threaten this amazing tree.  Red spider mites can suck the sap of the tree, and blackfly damage leaves.

Conclusion

Elder is an extraordinarily adaptable plant.  It’s been associated with Jesus, witches and fairies.  It can bring good or bad luck.  Berries are poisonous but can be made into delicious syrups.  The flowers can be eaten, used as a beauty treatment, or used against colds.  Elder wood makes toys, cogs, and instruments.  Personally, what I love most about elder is the smell when the flowers are out.  The buzzing of flies, the heavy scent in the air, and the rustle of leaves in a gentle breeze.  It sums up summer for me.

Jersey Post Fruits and Berries stamp issue copyright Jersey Post 2019

Online sources for this blog include websites of The Woodland Trust, Trees for life, and Naturespot.  Book references for this blog include Adele Nozedar’s The Tree Forager, the excellent The Greenwood Trees by Christina Hart-Davies, and the Reader’s Digest “The Field Guide to the Trees and Shrubs of Britain” (out of print but commonly available second-hand).

The post Trees: Elder appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

This one of the Cow parsley,  Anthriscus sylvatica, was recently done for FOR in Sweden.  It accompanied a large sheet of sketches of the same plant.  To learn more about Cow parsley, and how to identify it, check out my blog.

There’s also a Youtube film that accompanies this blog; please find a link at the end of this blog, or click here to access it.

You’ll notice that this habit sketch is less accurate than many of my illustrations.  This goes with the territory.  There’s only so much detail you can cram into a 20cm tall illustration of an entire plant, and individual petals and leaf veins don’t get a look in.  However, if you want to show a whole plant, rather than one portion of it, then a habit sketch is the best way to do this.  Alternatively, you can use a much larger format and work on a plant portrait which will be more accurate and less impressionistic.

Completed habit sketch of the Cow parsley

Habit sketch:  Pencil rough

The first thing to do when confronted with a habit sketch is to learn as much as you can about the plant.  I gather lots of specimens, and consult various botany books.  these include A Flora of the British Isles by Clapham Tutin and Moore, The Wildflowers of the British Isles by Garrard and Streeter, the pen and ink drawings of Stella Ross-Craig, Collins Flower guide by David Streeter, and (in this case) the BSBI Handbook: Umbellifers of the British Isles.

Once the plant and botanical information is collated, I draw up a pencil rough that shows each important element to its best advantage.  I use mechanical Pentel P205 pencils with an H or HB 0.5mm lead.  I draw directly onto my watercolour paper, in this case hotpress Fluid 100 by Global Arts.

One of the reasons why I use Fluid 100 is because it’s quite good at allowing you to erase your pencil lines after you’ve painted on top of them.  Various papers will, or won’t be good for this.  The way I paint means that it’s important that a paper will give up the graphite but not the paint pigments once I’ve completed an illustration.

Cow parsley pencil rough (with basal rosette and stem details)

Are leaves alternate or opposite?  Are upper leaves noticeably different from lower ones?  is there a basal rosette of leaves?  How are the flowers carried on the stems?  What does the root do?  All this information needs to be given by the illustration.

Habit sketch: Leaves

Once the client has approved the roughs, you can start adding colour.  I begin with the leaves, outlining them in green.  Winsor and Newton are my favourite watercolours, and I use pans topped up with tube colours.  I mix sap green, some cobalt blue, and a bit of cadmium yellow light together.  I keep the paint quite thick and dry at this point.  Carefully, using my trusty Series 7 sable brush (size 1), I follow the pencil lines of the leaf edges.  This approach is the same as I use when painting ferns and bracken.

Outlining the leaves

I observe my plant carefully, and add some variation to the green hue.  The central leaf is a little paler and brighter green than the others – I add yellow to the mix and outline it with this new colour.

Different greens are used to outline the leaves

Habit sketch: Top washes on leaves

Once these initial lines are dry, I add water to the greens to make them lighter and more dilute.  Then, using the same brush, I pop blobs of this watery green onto the leaves.  I love the crisp edges watercolour gives if you allow very wet paint to dry, and this is the effect I’m after here.

Watery green top wash is applied very wet

Because of the midrib veins and the way the leaves are structured, you’ll often see one side of a leaflet is darker than the other.  This needs to be included in the habit sketch.  You can either do this by going over the darker, shaded side with two layers of top-wash; or you can use a different and brighter colour for the top-wash on the lighter side of the leaflet.

Putting the first wash onto only one side of each leaflet

In this case I’ve done both.  I added some yellow to the top-wash, and covered the entire leaflet with this mix.  (I’d made sure the first and darker wash was completely dry first.)  Allow the paint to dry completely.

Two different colours of top-wash used on the leaflets

Habit sketch: Painting the stems

I actively enjoy painting stems because it’s so easy.  Mix up the right colour (as always, check with the plants in front of you.  It’s so important to keep referring to the plants you’re illustrating if you want to get details such as form and colour right).  This is a sap green plus a little yellow ochre, perhaps a touch of blue, and plenty of a clear bright yellow such as Cadmium light.

Then just outline the stems, following the pencil lines.  You can apply a little more pressure to one side of the stem than to the other.  This helps suggest a light source, and shadow.  Traditionally in botanical illustration, the light source comes from the top left, so the heavier lines are to the right of each stem.

You can also add ridges, furrows, or textures with simple lines if that’s appropriate for the species you’re working with.  With Cow parsley, the stems are ridged, prominently so towards the base of the plant.

Outlining the stems

Once the illustration is completely dry, dilute the colour you used for the stems with plenty of water.  Then simply put this watery wash over your stems and allow it to dry.

Putting a watery top-wash onto the main stem

Habit sketch: Painting the flowers

With habit sketches, the precision and detail of each flower is compromised in an effort to represent the entire plant.  So there are no individual petals to portray, just the frothy mass of flowers that constitute each umbel (or flowering head).

Illustrating white flowers is really hard – you need to show their form without making them look like they’re another colour.  For more on this subject, check out my blog or my Youtube film.  In this case, the shadows cast by each umbel are going to be key, and will be what we use to represent some tonal depth.  As with the leaves and stems, out light source is from the top left; so the shadows will fall from the right hand side of each umbel.

To ensure the flowers look clean and white, I mix a light blue.  Cerulean blue is light and bright enough.  Dilute it to a very pale tone, then pick out the shadows with the tip of your brush.

Adding shadow to the flowers

I work from the top of the plant downwards.  this helps me avoid resting my hand in wet paint and smearing the illustration.  Series 7 brushes are expensive, but they justify their cost by holding their tips.  When you’re applying tiny amounts of pale paint to the nooks and crannies of an illustration, the accuracy you can get from your tools is really important.  For more on my choice of paintbrushes, click here.

Applying blue to show shadow in the central flowers

Habit sketch: The root

The root tends to be included in a habit sketch, specially if it’s an important diagnostic feature of the species.  Please note that it’s illegal to uproot flowers in the wild – I happen to have cow parsley growing in my Aunt’s garden, and she was happy for me to unearth a few plants to get at the roots.

Illustrating these tap roots couldn’t be easier. In exactly the same way as you tackled the stems, outline the root.  I mixed some Vandyke brown with yellow ochre.  Remember to pick out the texture and root hairs, too.  Once dry, dilute the mixed colour and pop the watery top wash over the whole root.  Done.

Putting a top-wash on the Cow parsley taproot

Habit sketch: Adding shadows

Now the illustration is more or less complete, it needs shadows to bring it to life.  I favour a mix of purple and cobalt blue, sometimes with a dash of Vandyke brown.  Using this, and being really careful not to go too dark too fast, I pick out the darkest shadows.

This is an important stage.  Judicious application of shadows can help clarify muddy or messy areas of a sketch.

Adding shadows to clarify a leaf’s structure

I always put shadows below each flowering head, and frequently pick out the tips of leaves to help the eye find the edges of the illustration.

Again, because the scale of the illustration shows an entire plant, you’ll find it hard to accurately represent the shadow details on each portion of each leaf.  This is one of the drawbacks of a habit sketch.  I often find myself trying to pull in more detail than is possible.  there has to be an element of “giving the impression” of a plant when it comes to habit sketches.  I’ll admit to struggling with this looseness at times.

Fixing mistakes

Inevitably, sometimes when we paint we make mistakes.  Quite often I’ll think that a stem I painted is too wide, or perhaps a top-wash has overflowed an edge.  There’s no need to despair.

Using white gouache to fix mistakes

I use Winsor and Newton white gouache, permanent white, to fix my mistakes.  I use it really thick, straight from the tube or mixed with a tiny amount of water.  It helps sharpen up messy edges, or will hide a mistake.  It should be noted that using this is fine for your own work and for work that’s going to be reproduced (it doesn’t show up on scans); however, if you plan on selling your original artwork then the use of white gouache is frowned on.

Conclusion

And that’s it!  The illustration is finished.

Last step is to erase the underlying pencil lines.  If you’ve got a good hot press paper, you should be able to do this without damaging any of the paint (no, I don’t understand why this works either).  I’d suggest going easy on the rubbing out around the flowers as the only marks suggesting them are the pale blue shadows and the pencil.  A tougher approach can be used on the stems and leaves and root.

Hopefully, this illustration immediately suggests an entire Cow parsley plant growing in the wild.  Habit sketches tend to accompany much more detailed botanical illustrations which help clarify exact structures of stem, root, leaf, fruits, and flowers.  I find them pretty hard to illustrate, but exceptionally useful when it comes to identifying wild flowers in the field.

And now, I hope, you’ll have some idea of how to go about creating your own illustration of an entire plant; your very own habit sketch.

Completed habit sketch of Cow parsley with paint box

To see a real-time film of me completing this illustration and discussing the process, please check out the film below.  Thanks.

The post Habit sketch of Cow parsley: step by step appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

Sketchbook studies

All the botanical illustrations I do for FOR are in a sketchbook format.  I love working this way; it gives me the opportunity to include tons of details alongside a larger illustration of the whole plant.  Over the years I’ve figured out what elements I need to include for each plant, so can figure out the composition before getting started.  In general, details of flowers, fruits seeds, roots, and a cross section of the stem is needed.  These elements need to be accompanied by a habit sketch, a full colour image that shows the entire plant growing, and close ups of any unusual characteristics that the plant may have.  I always include written notes, as much to jog my own memory as to help the viewer.

Cow Parsley Sketchbook study Anthriscus sylvestris

Another appealing thing about the sketchbook studies is that you can leave parts of the illustration unfinished.  This gives me the opportunity to get into really intense detail on things like an individual leaf, or one bract.  The pressure to have the entire drawing completed in full colour is gone, which makes the process more relaxing.

Cow Parsley in the spring

For those of you who have been in the British countryside in early June, you’ll already know all about the Cow parsley.  If frothes up along hedgerows, spilling tiny white flowers out into rarely-used roads and paths.  At the same time, the May blossom is out, so you often have the wonderful sight of lots of white blossom curving down from the shrubs and trees, being met by the Cow parsley flowers growing upward from margins of fields and lanes.  It’s very beautiful.

Drawing the Cow Parsley

Umbellifers, like Cow parsley, are a real challenge to draw.  I’m sure I’ve moaned about the challenges before in blogs on Hogweeds.  The problem is that the plant is often really tall and leaves spread widely from the stem.  However, each element of the plant is tiny.  The flowering heads are made from hundreds of tiny individual flowers.  the outermost ones are zygomorphic, meaning their outermost petals are a different shape to those of the internal flowers.  The leaves are divided, or pinnate.  Sometimes divided several times over, as with the Cow parsley.  This results in very beautiful and feathery leaves.  But combining the size with the detail is very difficult, hence my aversion to all members of the Apiaceae (or Umbelliferae) family.  I love the way they look.  I live in fear of being asked to illustrate them!

This commission came in at the height of Cow parsley season.  I spent a morning gathering perfect plants, taking photos, and considering the best approach to the illustration.  Once home, I pinned an entire plant up against the trampoline in the garden, with a sheet behind.  I always take photos at the same time, sadly plants don’t live forever and some wither within hours of being picked.

Cow parsley set up to draw in the garden

Cow Parsley: Flowering times and leaves

Identifying Cow parsley is easy, mainly because of when it flowers.  It’s the earliest of these white-flowered umbellifers to bloom, especially in the southern UK.  And it’s certainly the most common.  Look for it from early April through June; by July all you’ll see is some basal leaf rosettes and seed-heads.

Cow parsley sketchbook study done back in 2015

The leaves set the plant apart from other common and similar species, such as Hogweeds.  They are 2-3 pinnate, which means they’re divided into leaflets, then each of these leaflets is sub divided.  It gives them a feathery, fern-like appearance. They tend to be a muted spring green, although can be tinged red or yellow when stressed by drought.

Cow parsley leaf variety and plant overview to show difference between small upper and large lower leaves

Leaves either grow from a basal rosette at the bottom of the plant, or alternately up the stem.  Lower leaves are borne on long, broad stalks, higher up the plant the leaves have far shorter and thinner petioles.  The big basal leaves can be up to 30cm, with individual divided lobes measuring 10 – 30mm

Cow parsley: Stems

Stems are gently ridged, and hollow.  They don’t have blotches of colour like some other Apiaceae species.  The stems can grow from 50 – 150cm, making this quite a tall plant.  Stems tend to be slightly downy at the top, and hairless down by the base of the plant.

Cow parsley stems

Cow parsley: Flowers

The frothy flowering heads of this plant family are umbels; these are lots of little groups of flowers carried on stalks or rays.  Each umbel has 6 – 12 of these rays which are about 2cm long.  The arrangement of flowers has males in the centre and hermaphrodite flowers around the margins.  Unless you’re inclined to get your hand lens out, this won’t be immediately obvious, although you’ll certainly see a difference in size between the inside and margin flowers.

Cow parsley flowers and detail of a small umbel seen from above

Each flower has 5 white petals and is 3 – 5 mm across. A whole umbel measures 10 – 60cm, but there’s plenty of variety.

There are no bracts right below the flowers, but some appear lower down.  Sepals are there but are so tiny as to be inconspicuous.  There are 5 stamen and 2 thin stigma.

The outermost flowers are zygomorphic which means their petals are of different sizes.

Cow parsley: Fruit

Fruit are 6-9mm long and carried in pairs.  They start green and become brown at maturity.  Each one has a short beak-like tip.

Cow parsley seeds

Conclusion

Why do I love Cow parsley so much?  Well, it’s a combination of factors.  The delicacy of the frond-like leaves is visually very pleasing.  The mass of scented flowers smell of the countryside.  And the way Cow parsley lines lanes and hedges is a harbinger of warmer days, and long golden hours spent revelling in an English summertime.  So, for all of these reasons, and despite the issues with detail and scale, I’m happy to go on learning and drawing this gorgeous plant.

Illustration completed for FSC guide to Flowers of Walks & Waysides

Please see my step by step Youtube film below

The post Cow Parsley: All about an Umbellifer appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

I recently completed an illustration of Bracken Pteridium aquilinum for a forthcoming Field Studies Council Guide to the flora of Woodlands.  I thought this was the perfect chance to explain the process.

Drawing bracken and Pencil roughs

Bracken is a large plant, some plants stretch to over 2m tall.  The leaves or fronds are sub divided, and each division is divided again.  this is called being tri-pinnate.  And it’s beastly to draw!  Reducing this complexity and size to a sheet of A4 paper is a challenge.

I took two approaches, and drew two versions.  One had the bracken in a clump, as it grows in the wild.

Bracken rough 1

The second shows two separate fronds and made more of the root structure.  This meant working from photos as well as filling my studio with bracken.  Photos are mighty useful for reducing a plant to a manageable size.  However, to guarantee getting the botanical detail correct, you need the plant itself, or at least close up photos.  (For more on working form photo reference, check out my blog).  The client chose this second rough, which I think was the right choice.

Bracken rough 2

Adding colour

So you have your pencil drawing ready yo go.  Surely this is where the hard work begins?  Well, no.

The very fact that the drawing of the bracken was so difficult now works in your favour.  there’s an enormous amount of detail in the drawing.  this means that there are very few large expanses of colour.  It’s these areas that end up needing the hard work.  They require attention to show the lights and darks, and to add texture.

With complicated structures like the bracken, you need do far less to get a good result.

First step is to mix the right green.  In this case I’m using Winsor and Newton watercolour paints.  To get the right green, it’s a mix of Cadmium yellow light, purple, Yellow ochre, Sap green, Cobalt green, and some greenish blue like Pthalo.   Keep mixing until it matches the frond in your hand.

Then all you do is go over your pencil lines with a thin and confident paintbrush line.  Brushes that hold their tips well, like my beloved Winsor & Newton series 7 (number 1) are ideal.  To make sure your lines are crisp, work on a smooth, hot-press paper.  Currently, I’m loving Fluid 100.

Bracken illustration with leaf edges outlined in green. Areas remaining to be outlined will be done in a slightly lighter shade of green.

If you want to add a little extra dimension to the illustration, you can mix two greens.  Make one somewhat lighter than the other.  I do this by adding yellow.  Then choose which side of your frond is the lighter.  Outline these leaves in the same way as before, but this time with the lighter shade. Keep the side of leaf which is lighter consistent across the plant, but be aware it may “flip” as you cross the main stem of the frond.

Tackling stems

You can put in the stems whenever you feel like it.  Sometimes I add them quite early as it ties the illustration together.  Mix a slightly brownish yellow-green.  Outline the stems, with a little more weight to the right side of each stem.  Then dilute your mix with water to make it paler.  Once the stem outlines are dry, paint over the stems with this dilute mix.  You should have stems which look a little darker on the right hand side.  Again, this adds to the feeling of light and shade in the illustration.

Once dry, you may want to add other colours to the stem.  For bracken, this would include the dark brown which appears at the base of the stems.  This needs to be included as it’s species specific.  other ferns may have flaky scales at the base of their stems.  Be sure to include these if they’re present.

Stem completed, returning to the leaves.

Adding body colour to the fronds

Once the outlines are dry, you can add colour.  Mix up a more watery green than before.  Tackling one side of each frond at a time, just paint this on top of your fern.  Allow the paint to be nice and wet.  As it dries, it’ll add its own crisp edges to your outlines and sharpen up the illustration.  Be sure not to do both sides at once.  If the wet paint runs into other areas, it wont look as sharp when it dries.

In the illustration below, the top of the fronds on left hand side have been outlined in a slightly darker green.  The top wash is also been a little darker.  The opposite side of each leaf has a lighter and slightly more yellow colour.  This difference in colour tricks the eye into thinking that the two sides are slightly curled upwards, with one side casting its shadow on the other.  it makes the plant look less flat.

On the other side of the main stem (rachis), flip the pattern of shadows.

I’ve also added some darker green to the areas of the stem which overlap.  Again, this is to add depth to the illustration.

Top washes on the fern are drying

Where the fronds of the bracken leaf overlap, I’ve picked out the shadows in a darker shade of green.  I mix this by adding browns, blues, or purples to the mix.  Be careful with this darker shade, you want it to represent shadow, not to look like the main colour of the plant.

Adding Shadows

Once completely dry, you can add even more definition to the fern by picking out your darkest darks with really quite a deep colour.  I tend to use a mix of purple with cobalt blue.  Be judicious with these dark shades, and remember you’re adding them to add tonality and clarity, not just to muddy and darken the picture.

You can also add the same colour to pick out the darkest shadows on the roots.

Completed Bracken illustration with darkest darks added.

Finished!

And really, that’s it.  If the differences between the sides of the leaves looks too stark, you can add a dilute green top wash to unify them.  If they look too pale, revisit and add another layer of wet green.

Compared to the huffing and puffing involved in getting the leaves of something like a rose or a hazel illustrated, this is a walk in the park.

The drawing is definitely challenging.  But when it comes to the “colouring in”, the intricate details turn our to be your allies.

Bracken Pteridium aquilinum with detail

Other examples

Below are some other examples of ferns done using the exact same approach.

The Hard fern has also had the blunt leaf tips darkened a little with a we-tish mix of cobalt blue.

Hard fern Blechnum spicant

The Male scaly fern (below) has also had a darker shadow laid along the right hand side of the central axis.  This helps draw the eye up the plant.  You can see the same approach we discussed above clearly.  The top of each small frond is darker on one side than the other.  And once you cross the central axis, that pattern flips.

Scaly male fern Dryopteris affinis

With the Maidenhair spleenwort below, a midrib was added to each leaf.  Each leaf was outlined.  It had a midrib painted in.  A flat top-wash of green was added.  And that was it.  In this example I didn’t even need to play about with lighter or darker shades of green.  I just made the leaves at the back of the plant darker by popping a blueish brown shadow on them.

Maidenhair spleenwort Asplenuum trichomanes

Feel free to give it a try.  You might be surprised by how easy it is.  As the for the drawing of any ferns though, I’m afraid that part of the job is just really hard work!

The post Illustrating Bracken and Ferns appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

Reasons why botanical terminology helps

I think knowing what variety exists in nature helps you to understand what you’re drawing.  So I thought I’d share some botanical terminology with you.  The terms discussed are in bold text; the examples are all illustrations I’ve done over the years.  If you find any mistakes feel free to tell me, I’m no botanist, just a keen and interested amateur.

 Leaves and their anatomy: Things to consider

When illustrating plants you need to consider: the leaf structure, its shape, its margins, its venation, and the position of the leaves in relation to one another and the stem.

This would result in a frighteningly long blog.  For today I’ll just discuss compound vs simple leaves, and some basic shapes of simple leaves.

Compound and Simple leaves: Which is which?

First, establish whether your leaf is simple, (in one piece) or compound (subdivided into smaller leaves).  Each of these smaller divisions is known as a leaflet.   A good trick here is to look for a bud.  Buds only occur at the junction of a leaf stem (petiole) and the main stem.  They never appear at the base of  a leaflet’s stem (called a rachis).  This is shown in my illustration of different forms of compound leaves below.

Compound leaves

Compound leaves and simple leaves come in a wide variety of shapes.  For example; a chestnut leaf, spreading its hand-like shape, is a compound leaf.  It is made of 5 to 7 leaflets, all anchored centrally.  The little leaflets are arranged a little like the fingers of a hand, hence the term palmate.

A leaf from the clover family (represented here by the bird’s foot trefoil) consists of three little leaflets, again, attached to one central point.  The term translates the English “three-leaved” into latin terminology: trifoliolate.

Sometimes, what appears to be a branch or sprig of leaves are, in fact, one leaf composed of many leaflets.  This is true of the ash.

Look for the bud at the junction of the leaves if you’re confused

Confused?  Use the trick of searching for the bud.  It’s at the junction of the sprig with the stem, you never see a little bud at the base of an individual leaflet.  This array is called pinnate, and in this case it’s an odd pinnate example since there’s one leaflet at  the tip without a pair.  You can also get even pinnate leaves (like the mimosa) where every leaflet has a pair, including at the tip of the rachis.  Just to make things even trickier, if each leaflet is divided again (stay with me, and picture an acacia, if you can) this is called doubly compound, or bipinnate.

Simple leaves

You’ve established your leaf is not compound.  If there is a bud to be seen, it’s at the base of the leaf stem.  Your leaf is simple.  But your life is not; because all leaves are by no means alike.  There’s a vast amount of shape variation amongst leaf shape (and a bit of variation between botanists who sometimes use different terms for these shapes.  In this blog, my references are Botany: A functional Approach by W. Muller, and Botany: A Textbook for Colleges by Hill, Popp, and Grove.)

The easiest shape to identify is Linear, or line-like.  Lavender and rosemary are examples.

A cordate leaf is somewhat heart-shaped; mulberry and lime are examples.

Ovate leaves are egg-shaped, with their base a little wider than their middle and their tip a little thinner than the middle; as with the beech leaf.

A lanceolate leaf is a very narrow ovate (egg-shaped) leaf; it tends to be at least 6x longer than it is wide.  Willow leaves are lanceolate.

Elliptical leaves are widest in their middle and taper evenly on either side of this.  Mint, cherry, and sage leaves are examples.

Oblong leaves are broad and un-tapered.  An example is the olive, and rhododendron.

Simple leaves: An overview

Here’s the overview of simple leaf shapes in one image:

There are many other leaf shapes, such as orbicular, rotundifoliate or peltate (all terms relate to leaves which are round, like a nasturtium) and sagittate (like an arrow) to name but two.  (For further discussion and examples, please follow this link from the University of Maryland.)

From the remit I had in doing the illustrations for The Rodale 21^st Century Herbal, this is most of what I examined.  I hope some of it helps people as much as it has helped me.

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