<strong>Woodland</strong> <strong>Gardening</strong> - prelims and <strong>chapters</strong> 1, 2 and 3 (290mm tall x 230mm wide).qxp 06/01/2018 08:39 Page 34 Above. Ernest Wilson’s collecting team and porters in China. Below. One of Ernest Wilson’s introductions, Magnolia sargentiana var. robusta, at Sherwood, Devon, England. 34
<strong>Woodland</strong> <strong>Gardening</strong> - prelims and <strong>chapters</strong> 1, 2 and 3 (290mm tall x 230mm wide).qxp 06/01/2018 08:39 Page 35 THE HISTORY AND EVOLUTION OF WOODLAND GARDENING to Christianity. Thousands of pressed specimens of Chinese trees, shrubs and perennials were sent back to Paris where expert botanists such as Adrien Franchet sorted and identified them and, in the case of many, describing them in Latin as new species. Delavay alone collected more than 200,000 herbarium specimens in China. At around the same time Irishman Augustine Henry combined the tedium of his customs duties at Ichang in China, with plant-hunting, collecting specimens which were sent back to Kew, before returning to Ireland where he was appointed professor of forestry in Dublin. Three significant Russian collectors were Dr Emil Bretschneider, who sent some of his specimens to Paris; Nikolai Przewalski, who made several attempts to reach Lhasa and discovered some important plants including Daphne tangutica and Meconopsis punicea; and Grigori Potanin, who explored Gansu, Sichuan and parts of eastern Tibet, and who is commemorated <strong>by</strong> his discovery Larix potaninii. Though they discovered hundreds of new plant species, named <strong>by</strong> botanists in Europe from their carefully pressed herbarium specimens, the missionaries and Henry collected very little seed, so that most of their plant discoveries remained confined to the mountains of China. As European nurserymen and garden owners became aware of the new plants, they began to cast around for suitable men to travel to the east to bring back seed. We have already met Ernest Wilson, who had been commissioned to go plant-hunting in Asia. It is strange that Wilson’s employer, Sir Harry Veitch, had such limited expectations of what he might find in China: My boy, stick to one thing you are after and do not spend time and money wandering about. Probably almost every individual plant in China has now been introduced into Europe. Veitch’s advice turned out to be one of the most misguided botanical statements in history, as over the subsequent decades China turned out to be the greatest treasure trove of hardy new garden plants for temperate gardens. Wilson’s 1899 expedition marked the beginning of the greatest age of plant-hunting and woodland gardening in Britain and Ireland. On his four expeditions to China, Wilson managed to introduce a raft of important woodland garden plants including Magnolia sargentiana var. robusta and M. sprengeri, Rhododendron insigne and R. williamsianum. In addition to his expeditions for the Veitch Nursery, Wilson later worked for the Arnold Arboretum, Boston, USA, travelling to both China and Japan. The Chinese provinces of Hubei and Sichuan turned out to be rich sources of tough plants, which would survive in eastern USA and northern Europe. The next important figure to emerge as a great plant-hunter was a Scotsman, George Forrest, who set off for China in 1904. • • • China: Mother of Gardens, an account of Ernest Wilson’s plant hunting. Isaac Bayley Balfour, Regius Keeper, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, in the early twentieth century. Professor Isaac Bayley Balfour sat at his desk at the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, staring with disbelief at the short letter from China, dated 17 August 1905. Foreign Office letter reporting George Forrest’s death 1905. A few days later he was reported alive and well. 35
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