Thursday 21 July 2016

UCLan Dandelions


It was graduation week at the University of Central Lancashire earlier this month and I noticed the university used the design of dandelions on their printed material and online. I like graduation week: Preston is full of students in their gowns and caps and proud families all dressed in their best outfits and everyone seems really happy.
I got this image from their twitter feed and it uses the dandelion in seed presumably to represent wishes coming true.

Monday 18 July 2016

Patrick Allan-Fraser Dandelion


I was invited to conduct an inventory of species at Hospitalfield, an art organisation based in Arbroath in Scotland a couple of weeks ago - it's an amazing place set within gardens, woodland and arable fields and in view of the sea. Go to the Hospitalfield website to read about its history and how it was set up by Elizabeth and Patrick Allan-Fraser.

While there I was able to spend time in the library and found this copy of 'Class Book of Botany, being an introduction to the study of the Vegetable Kingdom' by J H Balfour. Boasting  'upwards of 1800 illustrations' the one that I was most interested in is this one of a dandelion. Of the illustration is says "Runcinate leaves, a, and radical peduncles or multifloral scapes, b, c, of Dandelion (Leontodon Taraxacum)".
Patrick Allan-Fraser has written his name in the front of the book and dated it June 1872.