(A chastened amateur botanist’s approach to the truth is suggested as a pattern for life. The subtitle is an actual dialogue between Dr Chris Freeman and myself in late April, 1996, on a visit to a hydrologically-challenged peat-bog at the Institute of Hydrology’s long-established experiment at Plynlimon in mid Wales.)
A Veracity Key for Botanists
G: It’s Sphagnum: I’d say, Sphagnum aure - er - aureum (meaning to say, ‘auriculatum’) - Sphagnum aureum? - Yes, Sphagnum aureum - er, definitely!
C: Your attempts to save appearances - when you can’t name it - are so amusing to watch!
Veracity is not an inherently difficult plant to identify
In true botanists, but people find it so in the greenhorn,
When the specimen is unfamiliar and the parts to be examined
Are meagre. Then a good hand lens will be needed
To detect any propensity for honest admission in the bluffer.
In the interests of preventing veracity from going to seed completely
And encouraging realism, the bluffer has devised the following key.
(Immature or otherwise imperfect specimens of veracity in non-botanists
Should also find that the questions strengthen the quality of sincerity
In describing reality, if they adjust the context accordingly.)
1. Could Sphagnum auriculatum be growing here?
A mysterious land rises up before our eyes, large as life;
Hard against the barrier of the knowable, we look over.
Do we se a variegated garden of reason and delight,
Lit by the solar disk, touched by the heavenly fire?¹
Or has learning killed curiosity and become boring -
A means of self-advancement or (for the few) the motive power
Behind the institutional treadmill of research papers?
Explorers in the garden drink at the everlasting spring