May 2022 was a month of mixed fortunes.  Nine items of information were received from eight contributors, bringing the totals to 9023 items from 3082.

Visits were paid to several events including Lewes Garland Day and Northampton’s Oak Apple Day, and a number of walks were led, that for the Friends of Streatham Cemetery being particularly well attended and enjoyable.

16 posts were added to the website’s blog.

On 13 May 2021 the publisher of Vickery’s Folk Flora reported that ‘net sales of the hardback edition are currently 4,014’.  In January 2022 it was decided that no paperback edition would be issued, but no further information on sales was provided.  On being asked for an update on 9 May 2022 it was reported that 2,197 copies – considerably less than the number given a year earlier – had been sold; very disappointing.  Apparently ‘sales figures should always be treated cautiously, as it’s difficult to have accurate figures until some time after publication’.  317 e-books have been sold.

One publication was produced:

Plants in Culture, in A. Giesecke & D.J. Mabberley, A Cultural History of Plants 6: 127-46.*

*It is reported that the U.S. based Society for Economic Botany has awarded its 2022 Daniel F. Austin Award, ‘which recognizes excellence in an edited volume published within the previous three years reviewed in, or in the process of being reviewed for, Economic Botany‘ to  A Cultural History of Plants.

Image:  dried hops, Humulus lupulus, decorating the dining room of the Mermaid Inn, Rye, East Sussex, May 2022.

Edited 7 October 2022.