Interview: Philip Garnock-Jones talks about He Puāwai: A Natural History of New Zealand Flowers

Philip Garnock-Jones is a botanist, emeritus professor and former chair of botany at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington. He is an internationally renowned expert on plant diversity and the author of numerous scientific articles for local and international journals. Philip talks to NZ Booklovers.

Tell us a little about He Puāwai: A Natural History of New Zealand Flowers.

It’s a close-up photographic book with text that describes and explains 100 native flowers. My aim was to show all the different flower phenomena we find in Aotearoa – illustrating different sexes, shapes, colours, changes through time, adaptations to animal-, wind- and water-pollination, and separation and movement of parts  – and to photograph the flowers in all their variety with a botanist’s eye.

What inspired you to write this book?

The pictures came first. I’ve always enjoyed close-up photography and my father was an architect who experimented with stereo photography and projection, so I was exposed to all that as a teenager. More recently, I figured out I could make stereo pairs with a flatbed scanner. Then I needed a good camera for other work I was doing and it grew from there. But I also had an idea for a very different book on flowers at about the same time, so it all came together slowly.

What research was involved?

New Zealand is a bit of a hot spot for flower biology and pollination research, so there were a lot of scientific papers to read and summarise. There are also my own observations scattered through the book, on flower structure, behaviour, and pollinator visits. Even so, readers will notice that I often highlight things we simply don’t know yet about our flowers and their pollinators.

I’ve also done some more detailed natural history research, for instance we’ve just published a paper on flower biology of hutu. Hutu is a small tree that belongs to a family that’s known from fossils much older than Tyrannosaurus and it does something very unusual. The plants are all hermaphrodites, but they have unisexual flowers, both male ones and female ones. We followed tagged plants near Nelson for 20 weeks from July to December, counting how many male and female flowers were open each week on each plant. In about half the plants, the male flowers all open first, and in the other half the females open first. That goes on for a few weeks, then they take a break, after which they flower again as the opposite sex. It’s called heterodichogamy and it was not previously recorded from Aotearoa.

What was your routine or process when writing this book?

I started with a checklist of potential examples I wanted to include. As I took the pictures, I also made notes of my observations. Then I started to compile the text by adding information from the literature to my own notes. You’ll see that text broadly covers the same points for each flower, for example there’s a description, notes on flower visitors, timing, colour, nectar, and scent. I’ve tried to briefly introduce the scientists I quote, especially for the student work. Spring and early summer were always busy times, often involving photography and writing about several species at once. Late summer and autumn were quiet, but it surprised me how many flowers are out in winter.

The photographs are a stunning inclusion, and they are in 3D! Can you tell us a little about how you created these images.

Yes, the stereo pairs are a bit more work; they need to be presented at the same magnification and aligned vertically for the stereo viewer to present them properly, one to each eye. The distance apart for the two photos is less important because the brain does most of the work; it’s actually very forgiving and can be done with a hand-held camera or phone in the field. But I mostly work indoors so I can avoid wind, pose the flower, and control the lighting. My main camera isn’t an expensive one, but I did splash out on a computerised stacking rail, which takes a sequence of photographs that are combined by clever software to give greater depth of field. Processing follows a standard work-flow. I crop the two photos, mount them together, properly aligned, and only then do I adjust exposure, contrast, focus and the like. I often have to clean up extraneous matter too: spider webs and a surprising amount of fine synthetic fibres. Aphids, ants, or thrips in the flowers can move in between the two versions and spoil the stereo effect.

If you had to choose your three favourite flowers from the book, what would they be, and why have you chosen them?

That’s a hard one, and I’m glad you allowed me three. The bird-pollinated flowers – like pōhutukawa and kowhai – are the biggest and most colourful, but my favourite among them is probably the smaller yellow to red tubular flowers of taurepo, for their form and subtlety. Many of our flowers are small and not brightly coloured, but not necessarily simple, and of these hangehange is a favourite because it does so much with its little green flowers. And I love floral scents – always sniff a flower – and my favourite in the book is porokaiwhiri or pigeonwood, especially the male flowers, which are larger and stronger-smelling.

What do you hope readers will take away from your extraordinary book?

Perhaps that our flowers are diverse and interesting, and some have evolved in unusual directions, to be very different from their overseas relatives. Flowers are all about sex, and flowering plants provide examples of almost all the ways that sexes can be presented, combined or separated. I hope readers will appreciate the ground-breaking flower biology research that has been done by New Zealand researchers from Thomas Cheeseman, George Thomson and Ellen Heine, through late 20th century giants like David Lloyd, Eric Godley, Colin Webb, and Henry Connor, and the many excellent younger botanists active today. And finally, there’s so much more to be discovered that anyone with a sharp eye, a camera, and a little background understanding can help document.

What did you enjoy the most about creating He Puāwai: A Natural History of New Zealand Flowers?

Undoubtedly it was the photography, especially that moment when you first look at a stereo pair and it jumps out at you. I’ll never get over that excitement. But I have to say that another moment was when I first saw the gorgeous and very functional design that Duncan Munro came up with for He Puāwai; it completely transforms my 125,000 words and 550 images into a beautiful book.

What is the favourite book you have read so far this year and why?

I completely loved “Unruly” by David Mitchell (the TV comedian, not the fiction writer, although I love his work too). It’s hilarious and wonderfully sweary, but it also tells a version of British history that’s entertaining as well as – so far as I can tell – authentic and accurate. I grew up with “1066 and all that”, which isn’t as funny or as detailed as “Unruly”. And right now I’m loving Sam Neill’s autobiography “Did I ever tell you this?”.

What’s next on the agenda for you?

I’m not sure if there will be another book, but I do have some germinating ideas. I’ll certainly keep photographing flowers, and I’m trying to invent a new kind of viewer that will allow people to see side-by-side stereo pairs when they’re projected on a big screen, for talks and lectures. I think it could be useful in many fields. I’m also quite absorbed with my family’s history and hope to write something about it, but only for my children and grandsons.

Auckland University Press