John Nash, the distinguished War artist and landscape painter, described himself modestly as "an artist plantsman". Nash had a childhood love of gardening and illustrated many botanical books, including Batsford's classic 'Wild Flowers in Britain'. After the War, Nash taught botanical illustration at the Flatford Mill Field Centre. He once wrote that drawing plants should "conform to the need for accuracy combined with the spark of a love drawing". This could describe our pen and ink drawing of fennel stalks, which has the look of a working drawing, capturing the essence of the fennel stalks, rather than their photographic image.