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| Bridge at Shih-chuan Hsien, West China, 1910 |
I’ve spent a large part of this
year following botanists through the Sino-Tibetan borderlands, tracking them
through various texts – both published and unpublished. The hey-day of Western
explorers of this ilk is certainly the early decades of the twentieth century.
Many of these individuals from Ernest Henry Wilson through George Forrest,
Reginald Farrer, and Joseph Rock, to Frank Kingdon Ward, George Sherriff and
Frank Ludlow, all wrote travelogues of their remarkable journeys – but probably
the best place to start on such a topic is Euan H. M. Cox’s Plant-Hunting in China: A History of
Botanical Exploration in China and the Tibetan Marches (1945). Cox was
himself a botanist and travelled in this region at the same time, and so he
provides a uniquely interesting angle on this last hurrah of great explorers
conquering the final ‘blank spaces’ on the map (as he and several of his
contemporaries thought of it). There were a number of Westerners based in China
who dabbled their green-fingers in the subject in the nineteenth century. For
some it was simply a hobby, for others it was a more serious minded pursuit. Perhaps
the most famous of these individuals is Robert Fortune, who is credited with
introducing the tea plant to India from China. But it was only in the early
years of the twentieth century that the professional plant hunter really managed
to get a firm foothold enabling the ‘opening up’ this biodiversity “hotspot.”
Indeed, the Hengduan region of China covers a vast region of some 300,000
square miles (500,000 square kilometres). It contains over 12,000 species of
vascular plants, with thousands of endemic species and genera included within
this astonishingly varied array of vegetation, making it one of the most
botanically rich and interesting places on the face of the earth. Curiously
though, at this time, given the colonial interest in exploiting natural
resources for profit – the main driver behind this upsurge in botanical
exploration at the start of the twentieth century wasn’t so much a ruthless
search for timber, rubber sap, or cereal crops, but was mainly spurred by a
quest to beautify the ordinary gardens of the West with wonderful, and often
fragile and delicate flowers.
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| Min Valley, south of Sungpan, West China, 1910 (Havard / Arnold Arboretum) |
According to Cox, the transition
from amateur to professional botanist in China was first embodied in the person
of Dr Augustine Henry (1857-1930): “At
the start [Henry] made no pretence of being a botanist. All the study he had
had in that subject was for the knowledge necessary to obtain his medical
degree. Indeed in a letter written from Ichang [Yichang, Hubei] he admitted
that he took to collecting plants from sheer boredom: “Oh, if you knew the
weariness of the exile’s life. I have become a great collector of plants, and
after exhausting the neighbourhood I thought of going into the mountains, so I
spent six months in two journeys into the interior.” He did not start
collecting until he had been three years at Ichang.”
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| Augustine Henry in China |
Henry was actually a member of the Chinese
Imperial Maritime Customs Service, recruited by Sir Robert Hart in 1879. He
first arrived in China in 1881 and retired from the Service in 1901. During
that time he immersed himself in the study of plants and began corresponding
with many of the directors of the leading botanical gardens, such as at Kew in
the UK and the Arnold Arboretum in the USA, as well as the major commercial
nursery companies, such as Veitch and Bees, sending plants and seeds to them.
These recognised authorities greatly encouraged and supported him in both his
botanical studies and his collecting work. They sent him articles and papers
which he studied and absorbed with great proficiency. He was very much welcomed
at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Kew when he made a visit during a period of
home leave in 1886. Consequently, as his confidence and his knowledge grew, he
rapidly became the acknowledged authority in the West China region; yet he
remained keenly aware of his limitations and as such he always sought to act as a
useful conduit to the work of others in the botanical field.
Other Customs Commissioners across
China, such as Hosea Ballou Morse, commissioned Chinese collectors to work on
Henry’s behalf and sent him specimens. Henry even managed to engage his friend,
Pierre Bons D’Anty, the French consul at Szemao (Simao), near the border with
French Indochina (Vietnam), to collect for him as well. He also corresponded
with Arthur Bulley, the head of Bees Ltd, a leading nursery company in the UK,
sending him seeds. The two men eventually met in England when Henry retired
from the Customs Service in 1901. Bulley confided that he hoped one day to be
able to send out a collector to the West China region which he subsequently did
in 1904 and 1911 when he financed expeditions by George Forrest and Frank
Kingdon Ward. Henry had always advocated the need for genuine scientific
exploration of this botanically lush borderland region, and had frequently
taken every opportunity to encourage others to sponsor such expeditions to the
region. Writing to Professor Charles Sargent, Head of the Arnold Arboretum,
Henry stated his opinion that: “Yunnan is
a splendid ground for the anthropologist, ethnologist, zoologist, geologist:
and I should very much like to see a trained expedition set out to explore – we
who are on the spot are too busy with our ordinary duties to go in seriously
for any such studies.”
In response Sargent repeatedly
expended a great deal of effort in trying to recruit Henry to lead such an
expedition himself, but Henry repeatedly declined Sargent’s overtures, on one
occasion saying that “I could scarcely be
expected to resign from my position in the Customs, unless I saw an opening
equally good. I am less loath to refuse, because I know that remaining in the
Customs I still do good service to botany.”
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| A. Henry & H. J. Elwes |
However, when he finally left the
Customs Service and quit China Henry spent much of his time working on his
collections at Kew. He went on to pursue a successful second career in
forestry, studying first at the French School of Forestry in Nancy and later at
Cambridge University, publishing a seven volume work on The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland (1907-1913), co-authored
with H. J. Elwes. In 1913 he became the first professor of forestry at the
Royal College of Science in Dublin. Having made the transition from talented
amateur to recognised academic authority Henry continued to be a pivotal person
in the network of botanists working in West China, all of whom essentially
followed in his footsteps. He helped to spur the careers of several by
recommending them to the directors of the large botanical gardens and
institutions, such as the Royal Horticultural Society, and he regularly gave
them practical advice and support in their continuing work. Not least among
them was Ernest Henry Wilson, who acknowledged his debt to Henry, the
‘scholarly Irishman’ who had been a mentor to him when he first arrived in
China.
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| Ernest Henry Wilson |
Cox describes the best qualities of
the professional plant hunter in relation to Ernest Henry Wilson (1876-1930),
whom he saw as representing the first truly expert collector to operate in West
China. Such a specialist “spends most of
his life collecting, knows his plants, knows his job and knows his country. He
works by routine, visiting an area to see what is to be seen and returning
later to collect the seed harvest. He works for two masters, the botanical
institution that is interested in herbarium material and the gardener who is
keen to grow new plants. As a rule this kind of dual command works harmoniously
and does not clash. The collector sets out with a definitive object in view, covers
an area limited in extent, and does not run haphazard over the country. Often
collecting is the man’s livelihood; always is it taken seriously.”
Wilson was certainly a man of
exceptional diligence, with a meticulous eye for detail. He began his working
life as an apprentice at the Hewitt Nurseries in Solihull. He then went on to
work at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens whilst also studying in the evenings
at the Birmingham Technical School, where he received the Queen’s Prize for
botany. In 1897 he joined the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, continuing to study
for the Higher Grade examination in horticulture at the Royal Horticultural
Society, which in turn enabled him to attend lectures at the Royal College of
Science in South Kensington. He left Kew to take up studying full time at the
Royal College with the intention of gaining the necessary qualifications to
become a teacher of botany. But his life changed course when, having been
personally recommended by Sir William Thiselton-Dyer, the director of the RBG Kew,
he was offered the opportunity to become a plant collector in China for James
Veitch and Sons.
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| Davidia involucrata, at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh |
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| Père Armand David |
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| Davidia involucrata, at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh |
Asides from its main object,
Wilson’s first expedition was highly successful, collecting many other plant
and seed specimens of hundreds of other species over the course of two years
travelling in the borderlands. He made a second expedition for Veitch and Sons
before he took up an offer to join the staff of the Arnold Arboretum, having
made a favourable impression upon Charles Sargent whom he had met and
befriended while passing through the United States on his first journey to
China, thereby transitioning from commercial plant hunter to scientific
collector and academic.
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| Wilson on one of his houseboats in China (Harvard / Arnold Arboretum) |
Between 1899 and 1911 he made four
separate plant collecting trips to China, the first two on behalf of Veitch and
Sons and the second two on behalf of the Arnold Arboretum, covering vast areas
in the provinces of Hubei, Sichuan, and Yunnan. In April 1919 he was appointed
Assistant Director of the Arnold Arboretum and continued to travel, visiting
countries such as Australia, New Zealand, and India, as well as parts of
Central and Southern Africa, and various parts of Asia, such as Singapore,
Japan, and Korea. Whilst travelling in Australia he was horrified at the extent
of commercial deforestation occurring there unchecked, describing it as a kind
of “Arboricidal mania” – “Few seem to
sufficiently appreciate what an important factor trees are in the wealth,
health and beauty of a country. When you destroy the forests you upset the
balance of nature. Besides the aspects of utility and beauty trees play an
important part in health. They live on the very gas (carbon dioxide) that is
poisonous to the animal kingdom, and if the vegetable kingdom were destroyed
the animal kingdom would automatically die, too … The present generation must
remember that it only holds the forests in trust for future generations.” He
later succeeded Charles Sargent as the director of the Arnold Arboretum when
Sargent died in 1927, representing quite a career trajectory from his early
days and not least for one still relatively young. Wilson was only 54 years old
at the moment of his and his wife’s untimely deaths in a road accident in 1930.
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| Wilson in Korea |
Wilson was a self-made man. A
rigorous and successful academic, he gained many awards and several honorary degrees
in the course of his career. He was more than simply a botanist though, as many
of his written works also display an astute interest in the customs and
cultures of the peoples of the regions he travelled through. He was also an
expert photographer who always carried very cumbersome and fragile Sanderson glass
plate camera with him which he used to great effect. He was probably initially
coached by his neighbour from a couple of doors down on Gloucester Road in Kew,
the photographer, E. J. Wallis, who later assisted him with the processing and
developing of his plates on his return from China. But even the most cursory of
glances through Wilson’s photographic catalogue clearly shows that he had a natural ability for seeing and framing his shots. His dedication to
scouting locations, then scoping and preparing views over the course of several
days at a time, waiting until the lighting conditions were just right, have
resulted in a unique collection of exceptional photographs of the highest
quality, primarily documenting plants and trees but also recording details of
his journeys, the modes of transport he used, as well as the peoples and places
he encountered in order to form a comprehensive visual archive of the
experience of botanical exploration. Cox also noted that Wilson “was a writer of many parts” – “he could
give information clearly, readably and without frills in A Naturalist in
Western China, one of the most
informative books on botanical exploration ever written; he could be as popular
as you like writing for the large, sprouting American gardening public in Aristocrats
of the Garden, when publicity gave him
the nickname of “Chinese” Wilson, a name which he good-humouredly put up with
and secretly disliked; he could lecture extremely well. But in whatever mood he
always insisted on being accurate, and he rarely made a mis-statement.”
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| Wilson's caravan of porters and assistants, China, 1908 (Harvard / Arnold Arboretum) |
In my family there’s always been an
old adage that ‘gardeners are always the calmest, quietest, and the wisest of
folk.’ Wilson was one of those kind of men. Indeed, in some respects, Wilson
was a highly perceptive man with a global vision and scientific wisdom which is
starkly prescient when read now, in the light of today’s reality, as we begin
to reap the bitter rewards of a blinkered Anthropocene era. A modern epoch,
less than a century in age, which has failed to heed the entirely rational
conclusions of an enlightened and attuned man, such as Ernest Henry Wilson,
who, when writing in 1930, observed that: “In
the Bible we are told that in the first garden God planted ‘The Tree of
Knowledge of Good and Evil’, and in the old Norse Sagas the Oak and Ash are
frequently mentioned. Priest and poet in every land have sung their praises and
down the ages a mighty literature on tree lore has been accumulated. From early
times trees have afforded shelter, food, and clothing, and have exercised a
tremendous influence over daily life. The more simple the people the greater
their appreciation, at least so it would seem since as nations became civilized
they one and all by fire and axe have destroyed the friendly trees and of these
vandals the white man ranks head and shoulders above all others. From the early
stages of his colonizing days down to within a few years of the present,
wherever he has gone he has laid waste the tree wealth of the lands in an
effort, often in vain, to make a blade of corn grow where two trees grew
before.”
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| Wilson in Taiwan |
References & Further Reading
E. H. M. Cox, Plant Hunting in China: A History of Botanical Exploration in China and
the Tibetan Marches (London: Collins, 1945
Fa-Ti Fan, British Naturalists in Qing China: Science, Empire, and Cultural
Encounter (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004)
David E. Boufford, ‘Biodiversity
Hotspot: China’s Hengduan Mountains’, in Arnoldia,
Vol. 72, No. 1 (2014), pp. 24-35
Susan Kelley, ‘Plant Hunting on the
Rooftop of the World’, in Arnoldia,
Vol. 61, No. 2 (2001), pp. 2-13
Helen Dillon, ‘In The Footsteps of
Augustine Henry’, in Irish Arts Review, Vol. 29, No. 2 (Summer, 2012), pp.
110-113, p. 111
E. Charles Nelson, ‘Augustine Henry
and the Exploration of the Chinese Flora’, in Arnoldia, Vol. 43, No. 1 (Winter,
1982-1983), pp. 21-38
Seamus O’Brien, In The Footsteps of Augustine Henry and His
Chinese Plant Collectors (New York: Garden Art Press, 2011)
Ernest Henry Wilson, A Naturalist in Western China with Vasculum,
Camera, and Gun. Being Some Account of Eleven Years’ Travel, Exploration, and
Observation in the More Remote Parts of the Flowery Kingdom (London:
Methuen & Co., 1913), 2 Vols.
Ernest Henry Wilson, Aristocrats of the Garden (London:
Williams & Northgate, 1938 [1917])
Peter J. Chvany, ‘E. H. Wilson,
Photographer’, in Arnoldia, Vol. 36,
No. 5 (September-October, 1976), pp. 181-236
Richard A. Howard, ‘E. H. Wilson as
Botanist’, in Arnoldia, Vol. 40, No.
3 (May-June, 1980), pp. 102-138
Richard A. Howard, ‘E. H. Wilson as
Botanist’, in Arnoldia, Vol. 40, No.
4 (July-August, 1980), pp. 154-193
Alfred Rehder, ‘Ernest Henry
Wilson’, in Journal of the Arnold
Arboretum, Vol. 11, No. 4 (October, 1930), pp. 181-192
Alfred Rehder, ‘Ernest Henry Wilson
(1876-1930)’, in Proceedings of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. 70, No. 10 (March, 1936), pp.
602-604
Roy W. Briggs, Chinese Wilson: A Life of Ernest H. Wilson, 1876-1930 (London:
HMSO, 1993)
Denise M. Glover, Stevan Harrell,
Charles F. McKhann, & Margaret Byrne Swain (eds.), Explorer’s & Scientists in China’s Borderlands, 1880-1950 (Seattle
& London: University of Washington Press, 2011)
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| Tea porters, en route to Sungpan, West China, 1910 (Harvard / Arnold Arboretum) |
Ernest Henry Wilson Photographic Archive at Harvard University
/ Arnold Arboretum
Interview with Ernest Henry Wilson's biographer and great nephew, Roy Briggs (in three parts):
Also on 'Waymarks'
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