AN EXHBITION celebrating Lakeland flora through an unusual fusion of science, art and literature is being showcased in the heart of the Lake District.

Rob Kesseler's new venture Pollinate weaves together a rich collection of images and words, which inspired the artist while he was working in the Lakes.

What began as a chance idea, on an unexpected walk through Grizedale Forest, has blossomed into a whole series of works, which explores the decorative potential of an unseen world at our feet.

This new exhibition at 3 Degree West Gallery, Grasmere, is a celebration of Lakeland flora, observed through a scanning electron microscope and the journals of Dorothy Wordsworth.

It not only brings life to the mysterious process of pollination and fascinating forms of pollen grains, it inspires musings about what it would be like to take tea with the Wordsworths.

At the core of the display is a unique china tea service, decorated with prints in burnished gold of highly-magnified pollen grains, collected from flowers in the garden at Dove Cottage.

An enlarged page from one of Dorothy Wordsworth' s journals, in which the flowers are described, is printed on to the tablecloth.

And the walls feature magnified images of pollen arranged into colourful new forms that echo the shapes of the original flowers.

Dorothy's Grasmere Journals are littered with more than 250 references to flowers and plants, which she observed, collected and planted.

With almost as many references to tea, supped with her brother William Wordsworth and friends at Dove Cottage, this social act of drinking tea becomes a metaphor for cross-pollination - a fertile exchange where thoughts and ideas grow and blossom.

Pollinate is on until September 30 at 3 Degree West Gallery, The Wordsworth trust, near Dove Cottage.

Admission to the gallery is included in the ticket price for entry into Dove Cottage and the Wordsworth Museum.

For further information telephone 015394-35544.