It is only when they flower, bright-red and bird-attracting, that I notice the clumps of mistletoes in our trees. The sticky fruit, with their viscid seeds wiped from beaks to germinate on new branches, are irresistible to birds. The precise mechanism by which the birds spread the parasite was the subject of a vigorous debate Edith conducted with P. T. Littlejohn. Her final paper on the matter appeared in the journal Emu in April 1951 just two months before her death.
Even as incurable cancer spread through her body, Edith retained her enthusiasm for intellectual debate and found joy even in the destructive parasitism of mistletoes.
‘In flowering time they were “sipping taverns” for innumerable nectar-loving species, and in fruiting time a veritable orchard for silvereyes, painted and singing honeyeaters, mistletoe-birds, parrots and, doubtless, many other birds,’ Edith wrote. ‘Those clumps were little worlds in themselves, as they are today on undisturbed forest lands, and as they are in some century old gum trees in my own garden where, daily, we see their usefulness to birds.’
In January 1951, one of Edith’s last papers appeared in the Victorian Naturalist – an obituary for her friend, Professor Oakes Ames, who had been farewelled with a simple ceremony with a few flowers, mostly orchids.
Edith corresponded, for a time, with his wife, the pioneering suffragette and artist Blanche Ames. Blanche’s letters, along with two by Oakes, are stored, still in their envelopes, in a reprint of his essay on ‘Orchid Pollination’. Edith had noticed, where many would not, the contribution his wife had made to her husband’s work.
‘You are understanding and kind to quote from Oakes’ last letter to you,’ Blanche replied. ‘His references to me are deeply moving and I shall value your letter dearly, always.’
There is a letter from Oakes, dated November 1948.
‘Last winter,’ he explains, ‘my poor old heart, emulating the spirit of the labour unions, established a strike and my body is no longer able to comply with the demands of my brain.
‘It seems a long time ago – 1937 – since those glorious days of a new dawn in orchid pollination, but through those days nobody has remarked on Blanche’s charming drawings of insects, her first and last. I think she contributed much to a fascinating study.’
Edith spent her last days at Longford Cottage in Blairgowrie, under the care of Dorothy. I imagine her looking out over the cottage garden, towards the surrounding scrub that leads into the dunes and towards the beach, some solace from the illness and pain that gripped her. I am reminded of a poem that Dorothy Hewett wrote as she convalesced in a cottage on the Mornington Peninsula.
The garden darkens
underneath my eyes
the light fades out
wagtail plover wren
all creatures that rejoice
under the sun
creep home to sleep
and shall I too
eventually disappear
in a garden hat and a cloak
possibly accompanied by a Platonic angel
leaving a note
I have been called away
from the dark cottage
but on what errand
and for what purpose?
the shadow of the she-oak tree
feathers the sky
the evening star
glows faintly from the sea
and all that I
have willed myself to be
is stilled.
‘Just as this issue goes to press, word has been received of the death (suddenly) of Mrs. Coleman, at Sorrento,’ said a hasty note in the Victorian Naturalist.
Edith died on 3 June 1951 and was buried at Sorrento. On 12 June, the Field Naturalists Club held its annual general meeting at the National Herbarium. The weather was terrible and so only 80 members were in attendance. They observed a minute’s silence for the loss of one of their most prolific and productive members. Jean Galbraith wrote Edith’s obituary for the Victorian Naturalist:
There is no need to outline Mrs. Coleman’s work in natural history for readers of the Naturalist. They, like readers of many other papers, know her writings too well for that to be necessary . . . But, because she was unable to go out much during the later years of her life, she was personally unknown to many members of the Club, and we who knew her feel that we should like to share that knowledge with our fellow-members.
I was almost a school girl when I met her, while she was a recognized expert, and she helped me in many ways, yet she always treated me as an equal, and not as the learner I was. We loved the same things, and that was what mattered to her. I shall always remember her keen interest in all living things, and her enjoyment of beauty. Memory keeps our friends alive for us, and memories of her crowd forward as I write.
I remember my first visit to her Healesville cottage, and how lovingly she showed me its trees; outings when she found orchids that I should never have seen; a day when she drew me into her Blackburn home, saying, ‘Come in. I want to hear you say “Oh!”’; and showed me a bowl of blue Lathyrus pubescens against a cream wall.
It is hard to think of her apart from that Blackburn garden, with its trees and herbs and old roses, its birds among the fuchsias she had planted for them, its paddock of gums at one side, and its evidences of loving co-operation between mother and daughter everywhere.
Very characteristic of her was a sentence in one of her newspaper articles of perhaps twenty years ago: ‘It may be only frayed nerves or it may be a very real grief – there are few hurts that do not yield in some measure to the balm of a garden.’
I like to remember a walk with her, when, after finding and enjoying many orchids, we stopped at a fence of a little bush garden, watching the Spinebills among its salvia flowers.
‘Sometimes’ she said, ‘when I see a garden like that I
