Nancy Adams was one of New Zealand’s most prolific botanists and a talented artist. She made substantial contributions to Te Papa’s herbarium collection and produced a vast number of botanical illustrations, which were included in widely distributed and well-regarded books about New Zealand flora. As part of their summer research, Lucia Adams and Margo Montes de Oca spent some time looking through several of Nancy’s field guides which were published as part of the ‘Mobil New Zealand Nature Series’ – in particular, Mountain Flowers in New Zealand (1980) and New Zealand Native Trees (1967). You may recognise these books – they are beautiful, helpful and accessible guides to plants in the New Zealand bush.
In her introduction to Mountain Flowers in New Zealand, Nancy provides beautiful descriptions of several alpine locations around the country – including the Tararua Range, Marlborough, Canterbury, the Central Plateau, and Fiordland National Park – and suggests where and when mountain flowers might be found in these areas. She encourages readers to explore these ecosystems with care and admiration:
As well as producing Mountain Flowers in New Zealand, Nancy collaborated with her friend and renowned botanist Sir Alan Mark to publish a comprehensive guide to mountain flora, New Zealand Alpine Plants, in 1973.
Intrepid exploration
During the course of her career, Nancy travelled extensively around Aotearoa, often accompanied by friends and colleagues like Sir Alan Mark. Her field trips would take her from the very top to the very bottom of the country, and from mountaintop to seashore.
The map below shows all the locations in which Nancy collected specimens for the herbarium from 1943–1991: over 3,320 specimens in total. Several of these locations seemed to have been particular favourites of hers, warranting repeat visits. For example, in our previous blog, ‘Nancy Adams on Rakiura / Stewart Island’, we detailed her returning trips to Lonnekers Nugget, Rakiura.
On these expeditions, Nancy would write her observations in meticulously organised notebooks, collect specimens for the herbarium, and sometimes sketch or paint plants on the go, for inclusion in her future more polished artworks. These trips and some of the plants Nancy saw are also documented in photographs, taken either by Nancy herself or by one of her companions.
Alpine field trips
Nancy sketched and photographed hundreds of mountain plants during her 1967-68 expeditions with Alan Mark and his family while working on Alpine Plants, and on later trips while writing Mountain Flowers. Many of these sketches would become watercolour paintings, which would appear as plates in these field guides.
A favourite alpine location of Nancy’s – perhaps because of its relative proximity to Wellington – was the National Park area, in particular Mount Ruapehu. She would visit many times over the course of her career to botanise, take photos and make drawings of the plants there. On one trip in 1963, she took a particular interest in Euphrasia cuneata and Veronica spathulata, which she painted and included in New Zealand Alpine Plants.
Some of the most dramatic landscapes captured in Nancy’s photographic archive are of the South Island. One of her longest documented trips was in December 1959, the year she began working as an artist for the Dominion Museum. Accompanied by her friend and fellow artist Sue Skerman, she travelled from Dunedin to Te Anau, traversing Fiordland National Park with stops along the way including Key Summit, the Cleddau Valley, and Eglinton Valley.
