Journal includes manuscript text and memorabilia, and comprises a record of two trips to the Alps in 1911 and 1912
Pasted in are tickets, postcards and other travel ephemera
Enclosures were removed during cataloguing and stored in a separate folder for preservation purposes, reference EAB/3/1/3 (2 of 2). They comprise correspondence, 1919-1928. A letter from Farrer to Bowles, dated 2 Jun, was found in a Library amalgamation of ‘autograph letters’, with annotation that it had been removed from E.A. Bowles travel diary of 1911. This letter has been replaced with the enclosures from this volume. For a comprehensive list of letters in this folder, see EAB/appendix/3.1.3
Alps, 10-26 Jun 1911
With Reginald Farrer and others
(10 Jun) Departure for Modane with Reginald Farrer, his brother and Arthur Bartholomew. Preparation in London for the coronation of His Majesty George V. (11 Jun) From Modane to Lanslebourg by bus. Meadows above Lanslebourg. Campanula thyrsoides, gentians, Viola calcarata, Rosa alpina, Anemone halleri. (12 Jun) Collecting with Farrer at Petit Cenis and Dent d’Ambin. Anemone alpina, Ranunculus pyrenaeus, Primula pedemontana, Primula viscosa, Douglasia vitaliana. (13-14 Jun) Bad weather. (15 Jun) Collecting with Farrer. Campanula species. Viola cenisia dug up but ‘hated digging up the untidy sprawly fragile thing, well knowing we cannot expect to grow it’. Plants packed to send home. Annotation on opposite page: ‘This tin got sadly astray … my tin went to Forty Hall & Henry’s ferns to Swatton!’ (16 Jun) To Sommet de La Nunda. Collecting with Bartholomew and the Farrers. Violas, campanulas, Petrocallis, Ranunculus, Androsace pubescens (‘a new find’), Draba tomentosa, Saxifraga planifolia. Animals and birds. (17 Jun) Helped Farrer pack ‘a stupendous pannier of plants’. Collecting with Farrer. Gentiana verna. At the Italian border. (18 Jun) Collecting with the Farrers on the Col de Clapier. Eritrichium, Saxifraga retusa (‘our tins soon got heavy’) and Saxifraga caesia. (19 Jun) The Farrers’ departure for Turin. (20 Jun) Collecting with Bartholomew. Saxifraga oppositifolia. Joined by William Bilney and his son Alwyn, Graveson and George Soper. (21 Jun) Sketching Dent d’Ambin for Farrer’s book. Dwarf ranunculus. A ‘quite different’ saxifrage found by Soper. Animals and birds. (22 Jun) Seven boxes of plants packed for friends. Collecting with Bartholomew, Soper and Alwyn Bilney. Soldanella montana, a ‘golden marbled Campanula rhomboidalis’. Singing God Save the King to celebrate the coronation. (23 Jun) Collecting Anemone alpina with Bartholomew. Orchis sambucina, Nigritella. (24 Jun) Bad weather. To La Nunda. Thlaspi, Senecio incanus. (25 Jun) Weather still bad. (26 Jun) Left for home via Lanslebourg. In Lanslebourg three bulbs of ‘the golden leaved Lil. Mart.’ acquired from the gardener at the local barracks
Alps, 5-21 Jun 1912
With Reginald Farrer
(5 Jun) With Farrer to the Alto-Adige. Iris siberica, Geranium sanguineum, Campanula patula and Salvia pratensis. (7 Jun) To Venna on foot via Vennetal. Cardamine polyphylla, soldanellas. Packing plants in wooden boxes. (8 Jun) To Hotel Grief at Bozen [Bolzano]. Description of Bozen, its church and food. (9 Jun) Down the Adige valley by train. Mulberry trees. Farmers picking shoots for silkworms. To Riva. Buying biscuit tins, to Storo in a hired carriage. Collecting Clematis recta at Lake Garda, Cytisus biflorus, Campanula macrorhiza. Cyclamen europaeum and Scrophularia at Storo. Fireflies. (10 Jun) Leaving at 3.45am. A long uphill climb. Silene elizabethae, Primula spectabilis. ‘R.F. played at being a fly & crawling about on perpendicular rocks, while I grubbed & pick axed in safer pastures’. Bad weather forced an early return to the hotel. (11 Jun) To Creto to send plants. Customs officials suspicious, but ‘RF was absolutely pentacostal in German & Italian gestures, & finally … we parted good friends.’ The village and primitive hotel facilities. (12 Jun) To Daone. ‘The finest forms of Primula auricula I have ever seen’. Overnighting in a hayloft. (13 Jun) Bad weather. Walked into ‘a botanist’s paradise’. Collecting numerous primulas (‘no two alike’), edelweiss, Daphne striata, Saxifraga mutata. Animals and birds. (14 Jun) Slow downhill walk to Creto. Questioning by customs on arrival. The Albergo Croce d’Oro. Sorting and packing plants. Dinner, fireflies. (15 Jun) By bus to Tione, Trento and Bozen. (16 Jun) A rest day. (17 Jun) By bus to Monte Castellazzo. Primula juribella. Collecting Primula tyrolensis, Primula minima and ‘the hybrid juribella’, Potentilla nitida, Primula longiflora. (18 Jun) Collecting plants in the hills opposite the hotel. Ordering plant boxes at the Hotel Predazzo. (19 Jun) Packing and sending plants. To Cortina. By hired carriage to Misurina. (20 Jun) To the ridge of the Drei Zinnen to collect plants. Rhodothamnus, Papaver rhaeticum, primulas, Ranunculus. (20 Jun) Bad weather, digging soldanellas in the woods. (21 Jun) Departure from Misurina. To Innsbruck