Beginner's pluck
When Zoë was young, she would visit a relative, Dr Kathleen Lynn, in Glenmalure, County Wicklow. “We used to go for afternoon tea. She took me up the hillside one afternoon and showed me a wild orchid through a magnifying glass. I was intrigued, and from then on I began to examine wild plants everywhere,” she says.
It wasn’t financially possible for Zoë to pursue science. After school, she became a secretary in a multi-national. But her fascination with flowers remained; she began recording them in her late twenties. Since her retirement, eleven years ago, she’s been dedicated to this passion.
