Margaret Plues

Margaret Plues Margaret Mary Plues (ca. 1828 – 1901) was a British botanist and writer on the ferns, wild flowers, fungi, and grasses of the British Isles. She wrote fiction under the pseudonym Skelton Yorke. She converted in 1866 to Catholic Church Roman Catholicism and in the early 1890s entered a convent, where she eventually became Mother superior. Quotes We repaired to the fernery. The powdery appearance was caused by glands scattered all over the frond; this, and its general aspect, showed it to be the Polypodium cambricum Limestone Polypody. No locality could be more favourable to its growth than these woods, where the immense boulders of limestone greeting us at every step left no room to doubt the nature of the rock. Rambles in search of ferns London Houlston & Wright 1861 https://books.google.com/books?id=xvEIBkAQb-EC&pg=PA8 8 (50 pages; text at archive.org) The pretty white Helleborus niger Christmas Rose, so called because of its flowering at that season, is also a Hellebore, and its Calyx (botany) calyx is a brilliant white. Its beauty and purity, as well as the season when it blooms, insure it being a favourite in every garden. Rambles in Search of Wild Flowers, and how to Distinguish Them 2nd London Journal of Horticulture and Cottage Gardener Office 1864 https://books.google.com/books/about/Rambles_in_Search_of_Wild_Flowers_and_ho.html?id=6By1AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA19 19 (1st edition 1863) Henry David Inglis Inglis, in his work on the "Channel Islands," gives a most interesting picture of the seaweed harvest in Jersey. On the 10th of March and on the 20th of July, all the inhabitants repair to the shore, with such vehicles as they can press into their service, and they gather the weed in great quantities. Some they dry and use for fuel, and the remainder is laid upon the land as manure. It suits potatoe land remarkably well, and on this account is eagerly seized upon in Ireland, where it is carried at least fifteen miles inland. Rambles in Search of Flowerless Plants London Journal of Horticulture & Cottage Gardener Office 1864 https://books.google.com/books/about/Rambles_in_Search_of_Flowerless_Plants.html?id=FY8lAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA133 133 (316 pages; text at archive.org) Mr. W. F. French, of Bristol, prepares very pretty fern-glasses, arranging within them Lilliputian rocks and ruins. They are to be had at the flower shops in Covent Garden; and, though they do not look by any means beautiful when unfurnished, they have an excellent effect with the full complement of mosses, lichens, and ferns. The best place for such cases is in a window to the north, and twice a week in the summer the glass should be removed and wiped dry, a little rain-water being administered occasionally to keep up the moisture. These fern-cases make very elegant drawing-room ornaments. All the small hardy and half-hardy ferns are well adapted for the Wardian cases, as are also many of the Lycopodiums and all the mosses. British Ferns: An Introduction to the Study of the Ferns, Lycopods, and Equiseta Indigenous to the British Isles, with Chapters on the Structure, Propagation, Cultivation, Diseases, Uses, Preservation, and Distribution of Ferns London Lovell Reeve & Company 1866 https://books.google.com/books?id=N1IDAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA30 30 (281 pages; text at archive.org) Charles David Badham Dr. Badham and others give us such attractive accounts of the Gastronomy gastronomic charms of Fungus Fungi, the quantity of nourishment contained in them, and the desirability of out better appreciation of their excellencies, that we set about making ourselves acquainted with them with hearty good will. Introduction A Selection of Eatable Funguses of Great Britain 1866 London Journal of Horticulture & Cottage Gardener Office https://books.google.com/books?id=nm2E1f21GYwC&q=£4000&f=false (edited by Robert Hogg (biologist) Robert Hogg and George William Johnson (writer) George W. Johnson; illustrated by Worthington George Smith W. G. Smith) Travellers penetrating to the South Shetland Isles find Deschampsia antarctica Aira antarctica flourishing alone, and spreading its light panicles in a region of "thick-ribbed ice;" Agrostis algida was found by Constantine Phipps, 2nd Baron Mulgrave Phipps on Spitsbergen Spitzbergen; and in Greenland and Iceland, where there is scarcely light enough for the humblest vegetables to flourish, Trisetum spicatum Trisetum subspicatum not only endures the sleet and bitter cold, and spreads its blossoms under such inhospitable circumstances, but actually ripens abundance of seed. British Grasses: an introduction to the study of the Gramineæ of Great Britain and Ireland L. Reeve 1867 https://books.google.com/books?id=0oE0MXjXjPwC&pg=PA2 2 (text at archive.org) External links Author:Margaret Plues Ogilvie, Marilyn Bailey Harvey, Joy Dorothy Plues, Margaret The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science: L-Z Routledge 2003 1033 https://books.google.com/books?id=LTSYePZvSXYC&pg=PA1033 Studies in Mycology March 2018 89 1 63–84 10.1016/j.simyco.2017.12.001 Naming names: the first women taxonomists in mycology Maroske, Sara; May, Tom W. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6002341/ (See Table 1.) Category:1828 births Category:1901 deaths Category:Botanists from England Category:Non-fiction authors from England Category:Science authors Category:Victorian writers Category:Women born in the 19th century Category:Women authors from England