the botanist's books · sometemple

the botanist stayed seven weeks. she left in october without saying goodbye, and she left her flora of the parish open on the table, marked with a sprig of something the keeper cannot identify. it is dried now, and still in the book.

most read (judging by spine-wear and pencil): the latin names and the small pressed-leaf volumes, which she revised constantly. unread: the herbarium · misc., whose pages are still uncut. she meant to. she did not.

the books are kept on the east shelf because the room she stayed in faces east, and the keeper has not had the heart to move them. letters arrive for her occasionally, and the keeper sets them on top of the shelf, on the chance that she comes back. so far she has not, but the apothecary asks after her every spring.

field note · pencil, inside the flora every plant in the parish is two plants: the one the parish knows by name, and the one the parish meets in the field. when these are the same plant, you have not been paying attention.