Video: A poet-botanist’s lifelong pursuit of discovery

Running time: 13 minutes

Libby Houston is an accomplished poet and botanist, having published a number of collections of poetry and discovered several species of whitebeam trees. This includes a rare tree with distinctive silvered leaves that now bears her name – Houston’s whitebeam. And, as this short documentary shows, she’s also a climber, a skill that, at 80, she still uses to explore the steep limestone walls of the Avon Gorge in Bristol, England, allowing her access to otherwise unreachable cliff faces.

In this contemplative portrait, Houston reflects on the death of her first husband, as well as the interplay between her poetic and scientific work, including her quest to document every whitebeam in the Avon Gorge, showing that even landscapes studied for centuries can still yield surprises.

Produced by Aeon Video.

Directors: Alex Darby and Jake Morris