This is the book which begins by describing its heroine as "blond [rather than blonde] and ovately willowy". Thanks to everone who has speculated on the meaning of the last two words there; I guess I am convinced that she is thin with wide, childbearing hips, but it is possible to imagine a more comprehensible description.
Anyway, Freda Caron is a botanist working on some strange flowers from a newly discovered planet. That's basically the plot. Boyd appears to be trying to say deep things about sexuality and sexual politics, and the nature of humanity, but it really doesn't work. I was surprised to discover that the book dates from as late as 1969; it feels of an earlier 60s vintage. The ending, where
As far as that is true, it goes for members of federated states which disintegrate; it’s not clear that the UK is a federal state in that sense, and I know of one case of a state that clearly was federal (the Serbia-Montenegro union) where Montenegro had to apply for all the international memberships and Serbia inherited all of the existing ones (though this may have been a specific poison pill inserted by the anti-independence side at the time the federation was founded).
Seceding states like South Sudan have been bound by eg territorial and resource agreements with their neighbours signed by the previous state, but had to apply for their own new memberships in international organisations, and it’s difficult to see why Scotland would not also fall in that category.