Garden plants come from the garden centre, right? Wrong! They were introduced over the past 200 years from unvisited parts of the world by those forgotten heroes of horticulture, the plant hunters. Yet, today we take ‘their’ plants for granted.
How many of us know that the explorer who found over 300 Rhododendron species was sole survivor of a party attacked by murderous natives and man-hunting dogs and escaped by hiding in a river breathing through a straw; that the man responsible for establishing the tea industry in India single-handedly fought a gun battle with pirates while running a high fever; that the plant hunter who introduced many conifers to our landscape was gored to death by a bull; or that discovery of the Himalayan rhododendrons changed the map of the British Empire.
The Plant Hunters introduces these adventure-botanists, travels with them to the remotest corners of the globe and recounts their exploits and escapades, and reveals their discoveries and how these new and exciting plants changed garden fashions.
How many of us know that the explorer who found over 300 Rhododendron species was sole survivor of a party attacked by murderous natives and man-hunting dogs and escaped by hiding in a river breathing through a straw; that the man responsible for establishing the tea industry in India single-handedly fought a gun battle with pirates while running a high fever; that the plant hunter who introduced many conifers to our landscape was gored to death by a bull; or that discovery of the Himalayan rhododendrons changed the map of the British Empire.
The Plant Hunters introduces these adventure-botanists, travels with them to the remotest corners of the globe and recounts their exploits and escapades, and reveals their discoveries and how these new and exciting plants changed garden fashions.
