It's Merriman Time, Co Clare Time, and you hope that the shops in the area which deal in books have already got in a stock of a new volume by Charles Nelson, which would be appreciated by many of those scholarly, wide-awake pilgrims. It is a slim book, of fewer than 150 pages, brilliantly colourful and excellently printed. Even those who are not learned in the lore of wild flowers will find it intriguing. It is: Wild Plants of the Burren and the Aran Islands. Nelson calls it a simple souvenir guide to the flowers and ferns, but it is more. On each page is a close-up colour photograph of the particular flower taken by him, with about a hundred words of clear text. As a bonus, there is space at the bottom of each page where you can note where and when you met the particular plant. The front cover shows the Spring Gentian, a dazzling blue which, he says, blooms in May, but you could find it at times flowering in late April and maybe into mid-June in favourable places. You don't need to be a complete addict to enjoy this book. For example, there is a bit of fun about a plant often spoken of as hungry grass (fear gorta), said to be very unlucky - if you step on it you will suffer great pangs of hunger, or maybe die of it, the present writer has heard. Dr Nelson does picture and describe Quaking Grass, a plant of some grace and apparent fragility. You'll recognise it at once from his photograph. Stems with few appendages - "The spikes quiver and have heart-shaped flower clusters dangling from thread-like stems." Crudely put, it looks from middle distance like a couple of corn stalks that have got lost. He writes: "But asking whether quaking grass is the hungry grass of superstition is a pointless enquiry - fear gorta is just that, a superstition."
The Burren is unique, he tells us, because the mixture of plants is unique. Some of the plants he has photographed on the Burren he has also seen on the highest slopes of the Pyrenees and the Alps; others beside the Mediterranean sea. More than 600 different species of flowering plants, conifers and ferns have been recorded in the Burren and Aran - i.e., approximately half of Ireland's native flora grow there. He even suggests and maps out interesting strolls - of about three hours each. The Collins Press, Wilton, Cork. Price £10. Y