Posts from the ‘The New Sylva’ Category
The New Sylva - Flatplan April 2012
This week we held our first full editorial meeting with editors from Bloomsbury.
It is still two years until The New Sylva is published, and probably nine months before the editorial, design and marketing teams ‘launch’ the book within Bloomsbury. Between now and then some critical decisions need to be taken. The authors met with editors, Richard Atkinson and Natalie Hunt, to decide page size, layout concepts, and various style issues.
The authors recently travelled to East Sussex on the hunt to find some of England’s last remaining mature elm trees.
East Sussex is one of the last strongholds for the elm, where it is assisted in its battle to survive the continuing onslaught of Dutch Elm Disease by a special project run by East Sussex County Council; who employ a dedicated Dutch Elm Disease Officer.
In a recent post we wrote about Sarah Simblet’s work in progress, drawing an enlarged alder catkin (see post). Here is a sneak preview of the finished drawing. Far right of the photograph of the drawing (out of focus) is the female flower of Alnus glutinosa.
Detail of the alder catkin drawing by Sarah Simblet
Spring is fast approaching and our attention is beginning to shift to emerging tree flowers. Among the first to appear are the many wind-pollinated species. Trees such as birches, hazel, oaks and willows have beautiful pendulous male catkins, or inflorescences, containing many scaly bracts (flowers) in place of petals seen on many insect-pollinated plants.
Another species that bears catkins is the alder, …
Calling all foresters, woodland owners and tree spotters! A good example of a Wild Cherry Prunus avium tree is wanted by the authors of The New Sylva to be featured as an illustration in the book.
The tree must meet the following requirements to qualify as a candidate for a tree portrait:
- it needs to be growing in a woodland, or woodland edge (
