Story behind the art of Margaret Farr

27th Annual International

American Society of Botanical Artists and the Society of Illustrators

Spicebush, Spring and Fall with Spicebush Swallowtail

Lindera benzoin, Papilio troilus

This painting is a love letter to an old friend and favorite plant. For over 20 years I have kept a faithful eye on a spicebush that grows in dappled sun at the very edge of the water on one of the “seven bends” of the north fork of the Shenandoah River. I love this plant, and several times during the year free it from the choking vines which conspire to take it over. In return, it offers me the joy of seeing it in full berry in the fall, while the leaves are still green. Waxy, luscious, opaque drupes of an infinite variety of green, pink, orange, and red combinations assure fun and interesting painting. Since we live a couple of hours away, visits aren’t frequent enough for me to have caught sight of a spicebush swallowtail egg or larva, which appear in late summer (the telltale sign being a folded up leaf) - as much as I wanted to include them in the painting. Efforts to propagate a spicebush in Manassas, Virginia, where I live, have come to nought - it will grow where it wants to, it seems, (and requires male and female), so my stand of shrubs in the shadow of the Shenandoah Mountains is even dearer to me, and will perhaps one day share its lepidopterous mysteries.

Virtues of the spicebush include a lovely forsythia-like yellow appearance during bloom time in the spring, great performance in semi-shade and shade, a lack of appeal to deer, and, in the fall, the red drupes and another glorious display of yellow in the leaves.

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