The 1975
is Today Plant Walk
Sunday June 23;
11.00;
Meet us at the statue
of Domela Nieuwenhuis, Nassauplein, Amsterdam.
In August 1975 Joh. Bolhuis went searching
for a rare fern on the Haarlemmerweg in Amsterdam.
His walk took him from the statue of Domela Nieuwenhuis (the famous anarchist
born in 1846) to Sloterdijk (the once quaint village currently buried underneath
a train station). Bolhuis writes that he did not just find his fern but
also another 129 wild plants on a trajectory of two kilometres. We would never
have known this if it weren’t for a chance find of his book ‘Plants in and
around Amsterdam’(1976). From the introduction we learn that Bolhuis was a linguist by profession who
had acquired specialist knowledge of botany on the side. Further on-line research
revealed nothing about the man, but judging by his style, which was archaic even then, he must have been of a respectable age. Old-fashioned
language notwithstanding, Bolhuis’ botanical interests are remarkably current
today. All through his book he has a keen eye for the way invasive plants (sometimes
in combination with urban development) can change the floral look of urban
neglect in small time-spans. He notices plants in various states of naturalization, from century-old arrivals
from the Americas
to the latest species he sometimes manages to trace back to individual gardens.
In our annual plant walk we will retrace Bolhuis’ steps, overlapping his observations with ours, trying to find what he
saw, attempting to deduce what he could not have seen. The history of urban wild plants is the history of the world and with Bolhuis in
hand we will be able to tell some of its tales.
Be invited,
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