"A Whidbey Botanical" combines poems and watercolor paintings of various local flora.

When life gets too intimidating with its many pressures, Linda Beeman finds solace in the nature outside her front door.

Combining poems and watercolor paintings of various local flora, Beeman created "A Whidbey Botanical," a new chapbook out this month.

Historically, chapbooks were small pamphlets containing tales or ballads sold by peddlers. The diminutive format served Beeman's work well, with its delicate pages of drawings filled with vibrant colors.

"You have to smile / at their shy simplicity / those seven stamens / green striped sepals / waiting for their bee," she writes of snowdrops, which are among the first bulbs to bloom in the spring.

The chapbook explores 22 different examples of flora, in chronological order from January to December. Some are immediately recognizable, such as the Scotch broom that flowers along the side of the highway in summertime.

"It really wasn't an idea at first, it was just an activity to focus on something other than politics, wars, disasters in the world," Beeman said. "It was something positive to take your mind off the rest of it."

A Clinton resident and award-winning poet, Beeman has been painting for most of her life. Her self-published book is available at Moonraker Books in Langley and online at Amazon.com.

Beeman figured "A Whidbey Botanical" might be a compelling read for fellow plantswomen interested in the strange folklore of flora found on Whidbey Island. Digitalis delirium, for example, is commonly known as foxglove but was originally called "folksglove" to describe the gloves fairies wore. Other myths persist about foxes donning them for stealthy henhouse raids.

Beeman's other books pay tribute to her hometown of Wallace, Idaho and to those damaged by the War in Afghanistan. She enjoyed spending the year researching botanicals, many of which she can see from the windows of her home in the middle of a forest of mossy tree trunks and sword ferns.