A Rum Affair by Karl Sabbagh

Subtitled A True Story of Botanical Fraud, this book shines a light on a tale of botanical skulduggery on the Scottish Island of Rum that was never discussed when I was studying Botany in the late 1980s. 

In the 1940s, eminent British botanist John Heslop Harrison proposed that plants on Rum had survived the last Ice Age. But had he in fact cultivated those plants at home and planted them on the island so that he could lead groups of botanising students to find them as if they were native to the island? An amateur botanist, John Raven, believed that he had and set out to investigate.

This book examines this controversy in great detail, including the details of the fraudulent behaviour of Heslop Harrison, the personalities of both Heslop Harrison and Raven and the research carried out by the author. 

As a trained Botanist and fan of the Scottish islands I found the whole story fascinating. I do wonder though whether in fact it is too long and detailed for the more general reader, though the fact that it's written by a non-botanist probably does make it more accessible than it might of been had it been written by a botanist. 

A Rum Affair by Karl Sabbagh, this updated edition published by Birlinn ( 2016)

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Today's Crafty Green Poet Substack post is all about Appreciating Insects, you can read it here.