What do you think?
Rate this book
The Flower of Empire: An Amazonian Water Lily, The Quest to Make it Bloom, and the World it Created
In 1837, while charting the Amazonian country of Guiana for Great Britain, German naturalist Robert Schomburgk discovered an astounding "vegetable wonder"--a huge water lily whose leaves were five or six feet across and whose flowers were dazzlingly white. In England, a horticultural nation with a mania for gardens and flowers, news of the discovery sparked a race to bring a live specimen back, and to bring it to bloom. In this extraordinary plant, named Victoria regia for the newly crowned queen, the flower-obsessed British had found their beau ideal.
In The Flower of Empire, Tatiana Holway tells the story of this magnificent lily, revealing how it touched nearly every aspect of Victorian life, art, and culture. Holway's colorful narrative captures the sensation stirred by Victoria regia in England, particularly the intense race among prominent Britons to be the first to coax the flower to bloom. We meet the great botanists of the age, from the legendary Sir Joseph Banks, to Sir William Jackson Hooker, director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, to the extravagant flower collector the Duke of Devonshire. Perhaps most important was the Duke's remarkable gardener, Joseph Paxton, who rose from garden boy to knight, and whose design of a series of ever-more astonishing glass-houses--one, the Big Stove, had a footprint the size of Grand Central Station--culminated in his design of the architectural wonder of the age, the Crystal Palace. Fittingly, Paxton based his design on a glass-house he had recently built to house Victoria regia. Indeed, the natural ribbing of the lily's leaf inspired the pattern of girders supporting the massive iron-and-glass building.
From alligator-laden jungle ponds to the heights of Victorian society, The Flower of Empire unfolds the marvelous odyssey of this wonder of nature in a revealing work of cultural history.
In The Flower of Empire, Tatiana Holway tells the story of this magnificent lily, revealing how it touched nearly every aspect of Victorian life, art, and culture. Holway's colorful narrative captures the sensation stirred by Victoria regia in England, particularly the intense race among prominent Britons to be the first to coax the flower to bloom. We meet the great botanists of the age, from the legendary Sir Joseph Banks, to Sir William Jackson Hooker, director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, to the extravagant flower collector the Duke of Devonshire. Perhaps most important was the Duke's remarkable gardener, Joseph Paxton, who rose from garden boy to knight, and whose design of a series of ever-more astonishing glass-houses--one, the Big Stove, had a footprint the size of Grand Central Station--culminated in his design of the architectural wonder of the age, the Crystal Palace. Fittingly, Paxton based his design on a glass-house he had recently built to house Victoria regia. Indeed, the natural ribbing of the lily's leaf inspired the pattern of girders supporting the massive iron-and-glass building.
From alligator-laden jungle ponds to the heights of Victorian society, The Flower of Empire unfolds the marvelous odyssey of this wonder of nature in a revealing work of cultural history.
306 pages, Hardcover
First published February 11, 2013
7 people are currently reading
247 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
July 31, 2022
Many interesting parts, but only half of this book clearly dealt with the lily. The writing style was often awkward, especially when she would put single words in quotes several times in the same sentence; while I appreciate the person said the lily was "impressive" and "beautiful" I don't need just those words quoted.
December 7, 2019
Interesting account that is maybe 1/4th at best about a particular plant species and 3/4ths about the Victorian human history associated with that plant. If you are looking for a detailed natural history of the plant, its environment, its role in the ecosystem, animals that depend on it for food or shelter, you won’t get it. If you are looking for an entertaining story of the Victorian discovery of the plant, the tremendous efforts to get the plant alive first to the coast of South America and then to England, and the ripple effect trying to cultivate the plant had on Great Britain and the world, then I think you will be satisfied.
The plant in question is known today as Victoria amazonica, but during Queen Victoria’s lifetime (the plant was named for her very early on in her reign) it was known as Victoria regia (or Victoria regina, depending upon whom you asked, a source of controversy detailed in the book). Native to the rivers and bayous of the Amazon basin, it is a water lily that grows to simply enormous sizes (with leaves up to 10 feet in diameter though a more modest 4 feet in diameter seems more common, enough to support the weight of a child or lightweight adult), with enormous night blooming, fragrant white flowers that are up to 16 inches in diameter.
The book can really be divided into three parts. The first part details the discovery of the plant in the British colony of British Guiana in South America, the star of this section Robert Schomburgk, a German-born explorer, cartographer, and botanist working for the Royal Geographic Society. He discovered this “vegetable wonder” in 1837, a career changing find that gradually brought Schomburgk from obscurity (and often outright scorn from the apparently rather miserly Royal Geographic Society, an organization that ended up forcing Schomburgk to fund much of his own expedition out of pocket or from what money he could make selling specimens from his explorations) to a measure of fame and success (both in Great Britain and in his native Germany). The only section of the book really spending any time in South America (with some good descriptions of the many hardships Schomburgk dealt with from mosquitoes to overturned boats to resistance from resident colonists to the difficulty of procuring and keeping safe specimens to simply being out of money), it was interesting reading. Though his expedition was never intended to focus so much on the discovery and procurement of specimens of Victoria regia, it was interesting to read how infatuation both from experts and the general public back in Great Britain gradually transformed his legacy (and how the plant’s image got to be so tied to British ideas of empire and of close association with the new Queen Victoria, even though it was soon discovered that the plant was not only found in British Guiana but in fact throughout South America and had long been used by indigenous people as a source of food).
The second section detailed the debates over classification and naming of the plant, the tremendous efforts to get the plant alive to Great Britain or failing that in the form of viable seeds, of trying to get it to grow and then flower, and of construction of a suitable habitat for the plant, one quite unlike other plants in its needs and in its size and one requiring innovations in terms of keeping it in water, keeping it warm, and making sure it got enough light, all challenges on a northern island of gloomy autumns and winters and often not always the cleanest water (the industrial revolution with laissez faire pollution controls being in full swing). Weaving in interesting details of the horticultural and botanical craze sweeping everyone in Great Britain at the time (not so much Ireland, due to the potato famines which occasionally get mentioned), the state of botany at the time, the science and art of growing tropical plants, and the history of Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in England, author Tatiana Holway provided an interesting if sometimes leisurely and cozy account of scientific debates, technical innovation, political intrigue, and jockeying for social position as this patron or that duke wanted to get Victoria regia first, get it to bloom first, and get credit for these innovations (and presenting the queen with a specimen in full bloom).
Stars of this middle section include Joseph Paxton (the man who rose to fame as the head gardener for Chatsworth, a world class garden owned by William Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire and one the author spends a lot of time detailing; Paxton among other things cultivated the Cavendish banana – the most eaten banana in the world – as well as designing the famed Crystal Palace and was responsible for the first flowering of Victoria regia in Great Britain), John Lindley (prominent if not the most prominent English botanist and orchidologist of the early and mid-19th century, among other claims to fame saved the Horticultural Society of London from financial ruin, enabling the society among other things to employ plant collectors such as David Douglas, active in western North America and among other finds discovered the Douglas fir, saved the Kew Gardens, and helped William Hooker become its new and very successful director), and William Hooker (another prominent botanist who essentially saved the Kew Gardens, created the major public attraction and scientific institution it is today, and though not the first to get Victoria regia to flower in Great Britain nevertheless played a vital role in getting that plant to Paxton who did achieve success at Chatsworth).
The third and smallest I believe part of the book details the history of the Great Exhibition held in London in 1851, how its centerpiece, the largest building in the world, the famed Crystal Palace, owed its inspiration and design not only from the efforts to build a home for Victoria regia in Great Britain but from actual details of the physical structure of the plant itself, as Charles Dickens wrote “that the Crystal Palace arose from Victoria regia “as consequently oaks grow from acorns.”” There are some really good descriptions of the construction of the Crystal Palace and how it looked at its height, including a few quotes from such people as Queen Victoria, Charles Dickens, and Charlotte Bronte.
Though not going into tremendous or lengthy detail, the author wrote that the “architecture of modernity in just about every world city owes something to Paxton’s ideas of constructing edifices in glass,” seen everywhere from Floral Hall of London’s Covent Garden to Cesar Pelli’s Winter Garden in New York to the Crystal Palace in Walt Disney World, in Orlando, Florida (which “doesn’t look anything like Paxton’s,” though there is a replica in the form of the Infomart in Dallas, Texas). I don’t know enough about the history of architecture to know how truly influential Paxton’s Crystal Palace truly was, but given the detailed descriptions of the technical and engineering challenges and the political resistance to the structure, I can believe that it was very important in the history of large glass buildings.
The book has lots of black and white and several color illustrations in sections of plates collected in two areas of the book, nearly all contemporary illustrations and photographs, including of not only Victoria regia but also of the Crystal Palace, a map of British Guiana (as surveyed by Robert Schomburgk), and various portraits of the main characters in the book. There is an extensive section of notes, a very lengthy bibliography, and a detailed index as well.
The plant in question is known today as Victoria amazonica, but during Queen Victoria’s lifetime (the plant was named for her very early on in her reign) it was known as Victoria regia (or Victoria regina, depending upon whom you asked, a source of controversy detailed in the book). Native to the rivers and bayous of the Amazon basin, it is a water lily that grows to simply enormous sizes (with leaves up to 10 feet in diameter though a more modest 4 feet in diameter seems more common, enough to support the weight of a child or lightweight adult), with enormous night blooming, fragrant white flowers that are up to 16 inches in diameter.
The book can really be divided into three parts. The first part details the discovery of the plant in the British colony of British Guiana in South America, the star of this section Robert Schomburgk, a German-born explorer, cartographer, and botanist working for the Royal Geographic Society. He discovered this “vegetable wonder” in 1837, a career changing find that gradually brought Schomburgk from obscurity (and often outright scorn from the apparently rather miserly Royal Geographic Society, an organization that ended up forcing Schomburgk to fund much of his own expedition out of pocket or from what money he could make selling specimens from his explorations) to a measure of fame and success (both in Great Britain and in his native Germany). The only section of the book really spending any time in South America (with some good descriptions of the many hardships Schomburgk dealt with from mosquitoes to overturned boats to resistance from resident colonists to the difficulty of procuring and keeping safe specimens to simply being out of money), it was interesting reading. Though his expedition was never intended to focus so much on the discovery and procurement of specimens of Victoria regia, it was interesting to read how infatuation both from experts and the general public back in Great Britain gradually transformed his legacy (and how the plant’s image got to be so tied to British ideas of empire and of close association with the new Queen Victoria, even though it was soon discovered that the plant was not only found in British Guiana but in fact throughout South America and had long been used by indigenous people as a source of food).
The second section detailed the debates over classification and naming of the plant, the tremendous efforts to get the plant alive to Great Britain or failing that in the form of viable seeds, of trying to get it to grow and then flower, and of construction of a suitable habitat for the plant, one quite unlike other plants in its needs and in its size and one requiring innovations in terms of keeping it in water, keeping it warm, and making sure it got enough light, all challenges on a northern island of gloomy autumns and winters and often not always the cleanest water (the industrial revolution with laissez faire pollution controls being in full swing). Weaving in interesting details of the horticultural and botanical craze sweeping everyone in Great Britain at the time (not so much Ireland, due to the potato famines which occasionally get mentioned), the state of botany at the time, the science and art of growing tropical plants, and the history of Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in England, author Tatiana Holway provided an interesting if sometimes leisurely and cozy account of scientific debates, technical innovation, political intrigue, and jockeying for social position as this patron or that duke wanted to get Victoria regia first, get it to bloom first, and get credit for these innovations (and presenting the queen with a specimen in full bloom).
Stars of this middle section include Joseph Paxton (the man who rose to fame as the head gardener for Chatsworth, a world class garden owned by William Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire and one the author spends a lot of time detailing; Paxton among other things cultivated the Cavendish banana – the most eaten banana in the world – as well as designing the famed Crystal Palace and was responsible for the first flowering of Victoria regia in Great Britain), John Lindley (prominent if not the most prominent English botanist and orchidologist of the early and mid-19th century, among other claims to fame saved the Horticultural Society of London from financial ruin, enabling the society among other things to employ plant collectors such as David Douglas, active in western North America and among other finds discovered the Douglas fir, saved the Kew Gardens, and helped William Hooker become its new and very successful director), and William Hooker (another prominent botanist who essentially saved the Kew Gardens, created the major public attraction and scientific institution it is today, and though not the first to get Victoria regia to flower in Great Britain nevertheless played a vital role in getting that plant to Paxton who did achieve success at Chatsworth).
The third and smallest I believe part of the book details the history of the Great Exhibition held in London in 1851, how its centerpiece, the largest building in the world, the famed Crystal Palace, owed its inspiration and design not only from the efforts to build a home for Victoria regia in Great Britain but from actual details of the physical structure of the plant itself, as Charles Dickens wrote “that the Crystal Palace arose from Victoria regia “as consequently oaks grow from acorns.”” There are some really good descriptions of the construction of the Crystal Palace and how it looked at its height, including a few quotes from such people as Queen Victoria, Charles Dickens, and Charlotte Bronte.
Though not going into tremendous or lengthy detail, the author wrote that the “architecture of modernity in just about every world city owes something to Paxton’s ideas of constructing edifices in glass,” seen everywhere from Floral Hall of London’s Covent Garden to Cesar Pelli’s Winter Garden in New York to the Crystal Palace in Walt Disney World, in Orlando, Florida (which “doesn’t look anything like Paxton’s,” though there is a replica in the form of the Infomart in Dallas, Texas). I don’t know enough about the history of architecture to know how truly influential Paxton’s Crystal Palace truly was, but given the detailed descriptions of the technical and engineering challenges and the political resistance to the structure, I can believe that it was very important in the history of large glass buildings.
The book has lots of black and white and several color illustrations in sections of plates collected in two areas of the book, nearly all contemporary illustrations and photographs, including of not only Victoria regia but also of the Crystal Palace, a map of British Guiana (as surveyed by Robert Schomburgk), and various portraits of the main characters in the book. There is an extensive section of notes, a very lengthy bibliography, and a detailed index as well.
October 22, 2013
At the dawn of the Victorian era, Britain was mad for gardening. Regular discoveries of new flora, the drawings and specimens that survived the journey back to London, and the technological advances of the second industrial revolution helped to fuel that passion. Beginning with Schomburgk’s fortuitous discovery in 1837 of the massive Victoria Regia – the eponymous Flower of Empire – continuing with Paxton’s Crystal Palace and the Great Exhibition of 1851, Holway weaves together an impressive narrative. From never-ending challenges facing Schomburgk in the new British colony of Guiana, to the rivalries described between various botanists and organizations to be the first to publish new species discoveries, and further explored by describing how technological and social change helped raise a humble garden boy, Paxton, to knighthood, the highly researched Flower of Empire recounts the changing world of this colossus flower.
I personally found the story of Paxton the most interesting and developed. We follow his career from the beginning as a humble garden boy at the Horticultural Society’s Chiswick Gardens, to his appointment at just age 20 to the position of Head Gardener of Chatsworth and the changes he brought to that estate, to knighthood by Queen Victoria. His rise to success was facilitated by a favourable relationship with the Duke, Paxton received a gentleman’s education when he assisted the Duke’s travel on the Continent; he returned a changed man. Holway refers to this experience throughout descriptions of his career to explain his comfort with a variety of situations and perhaps as an influence to his innovations. As head gardener he worked to make Chatsworth a haven of botanical wonders by designing new gardens, innovative glass houses, and created elaborate displays for both notables and the press. Becoming the first man to coax the water lily to blossom, he secured the influence to submit and secure the commission to design the Crystal Palace. Paxton was not just a botanical man, he worked with his wife Sarah -- who often supervised and played a prominent role in managing his affairs as he was often away from the Chatsworth gardens– in managing their interests in the railway industry.
Holway’s text is a fascinating botanical and sociological review of the far reaching impact of one flower on the empire.
I received my review copy through LibraryThing Early Reviewer’s Program/Net Galley.
I personally found the story of Paxton the most interesting and developed. We follow his career from the beginning as a humble garden boy at the Horticultural Society’s Chiswick Gardens, to his appointment at just age 20 to the position of Head Gardener of Chatsworth and the changes he brought to that estate, to knighthood by Queen Victoria. His rise to success was facilitated by a favourable relationship with the Duke, Paxton received a gentleman’s education when he assisted the Duke’s travel on the Continent; he returned a changed man. Holway refers to this experience throughout descriptions of his career to explain his comfort with a variety of situations and perhaps as an influence to his innovations. As head gardener he worked to make Chatsworth a haven of botanical wonders by designing new gardens, innovative glass houses, and created elaborate displays for both notables and the press. Becoming the first man to coax the water lily to blossom, he secured the influence to submit and secure the commission to design the Crystal Palace. Paxton was not just a botanical man, he worked with his wife Sarah -- who often supervised and played a prominent role in managing his affairs as he was often away from the Chatsworth gardens– in managing their interests in the railway industry.
Holway’s text is a fascinating botanical and sociological review of the far reaching impact of one flower on the empire.
I received my review copy through LibraryThing Early Reviewer’s Program/Net Galley.
January 29, 2019
As young Queen Victoria ascends the British Throne, a young man Robert Schomburgk who has been surveying British Guyana in South America decides to name an extremely large a beautiful lily that he found growing there after her. The intrepid Schomburgk has climbed through the dense jungle and faced mosquitoes in his quest to discover the secrets of this unknown land.
The lily itself is very large with leaves that five feet or more. The gorgeous flower is surrounded by thorns. Getting a few cuts, Schomburgk tries to bring back a flower to England without much success. The story that develops chronicles the development of London's famous Kew Gardens, the evolution of hot houses on the properties of the wealthy, and the numerous attempts to make this flower grow in the English climate.
What I really like about this tale from the 19th century is it demonstrates the growth of science and recalls the days when there was still new territory to discover. It also discusses the Crystal Palace that was developed for London's Great Exhibition in 1851 which was designed to display marvels and inventions from all over the world.
The lily itself is very large with leaves that five feet or more. The gorgeous flower is surrounded by thorns. Getting a few cuts, Schomburgk tries to bring back a flower to England without much success. The story that develops chronicles the development of London's famous Kew Gardens, the evolution of hot houses on the properties of the wealthy, and the numerous attempts to make this flower grow in the English climate.
What I really like about this tale from the 19th century is it demonstrates the growth of science and recalls the days when there was still new territory to discover. It also discusses the Crystal Palace that was developed for London's Great Exhibition in 1851 which was designed to display marvels and inventions from all over the world.
February 17, 2013
The Flower of the Empire is really a story about the Victorians' passion for botany and horticulture held together by its discovery in British Guiana in 1837 and the culture of a giant water lily named after Queen Victoria.
The behaviour of the amateur and academic botanists is eye-opening, ranging from collegial to downright hostile. The horticulturalists, backyard middle class Victorians and the elite head gardeners of the aristocracy, were equally riveting.
The book ends with the mind-boggling Exhibition of 1851 in Crystal Palace, which was designed by the Duke of Devonshire's head gardener. Paxton was also the first person to grow the giant water lily from seed in the UK.
As interested as I am in this period, I found the book a bit long and it wanders at times. The style is detailed and delivers a quantity of the author's wry humour.
However I persevered and enjoyed most of it. Recommended for readers who enjoy Victorian history and horticulture.
The behaviour of the amateur and academic botanists is eye-opening, ranging from collegial to downright hostile. The horticulturalists, backyard middle class Victorians and the elite head gardeners of the aristocracy, were equally riveting.
The book ends with the mind-boggling Exhibition of 1851 in Crystal Palace, which was designed by the Duke of Devonshire's head gardener. Paxton was also the first person to grow the giant water lily from seed in the UK.
As interested as I am in this period, I found the book a bit long and it wanders at times. The style is detailed and delivers a quantity of the author's wry humour.
However I persevered and enjoyed most of it. Recommended for readers who enjoy Victorian history and horticulture.
May 6, 2014
The Flower of Empire begins with the harrowing adventure of plant collectors in the new world trying to satisfy the unquenchable appetite of British gardeners for new and exotic plants. The discovery of the gargantuan Amazon Water Lily (Victoria amazonica) starts a mania for huge greenhouses to contain the large plant. The book gives us a good history of the early players in botany and the British mania for gardening. Highly recommended.
June 9, 2023
This book entirely surprised me. I expected to read a story or two about a British plant explorer and then return it to the library after two weeks. Instead, I read it straight through - marveling at the interweaving of Victorian English ideals with cast iron greenhouse architecture with jungle exploration. I followed this book with The Lost City of Z, which kept me well in the same exploratory mood.
April 8, 2020
The story behind this book is fascinating, and one that was recommended after reading “The Orchid Thief”. I borrowed a copy from the library and found it good enough to want my own copy. I ordered one from Amazon and delved in right when it came in the mail. However, it was not as much of a page turner as “The Orchid Thief”. Details abounded in the story, but I felt that the author got caught in the smaller side stories rather than moving the main story along at a good pace. I put down and picked up this book more times than I can count, and cannot quite make myself sit down and finish this book, even only 100 pages from the ending. If nothing else, this book is making me want to reread the orchid thief.
January 6, 2020
Several history threads to unpack here, not just the identifying of the Victoria water lily in South America; also includes history of Kew Gardens, Chatsworth, the Great Exhibition of 1851 and the Crystal Palace, and people involved with the development of each.
November 13, 2016
It was another plug away at it book. I read it for my garden book club. The Lily part was interesting. Again, way too long. It became a chore to finish.
March 4, 2023
this is for my thesis it's very interesting slay
March 10, 2024
Read to page 230 of this.
September 30, 2016
Mostly fascinating because I was recently at Kew and had seen the water lily. Some bits were really interesting, it was pretty dry overall and there were some rabbit trails about men's lives that I didn't think needed to be included. It could have been about half the length, in fact the core story could have been told in a longform article.
July 2, 2014
Este livro retrata a época em que a botânica ganhou maior importância quando com as descobertas marítimas, milhares de plantas novas eram encontradas pelo mundo fora.
O livro começa com a descoberta do Nenúfar Gigante nas margens do Amazonas na selva da Guiana quando este era uma colónia inglesa. A par dessa descoberta, dá-se a coroação da rainha Victoria.
O livro retrata toda uma sociedade inglesa dessa época, quando os caçadores de plantas traziam novidades para a velha Europa, quando se faziam descobertas, quando as colecções botânicas privadas criavam um status.
Apaixonado como sou pela história da botânica e dos jardins, em especial ingleses, este livro foi como se tivesse sido escrito para mim por encomenda. Aqui encontrei muitas personagens que admiro e que fiquei a conhecer melhor, aqui se falou de orquídeas, da grande exposição de Londres, da evolução das estufas desde as caixas de Wardian até ao Palácio de Cristal e da importância que a descoberta do nenúfar Victoria amazonica (no início chamado de Victoria regia) significou para toda uma sociedade.
Apaixonante para loucos como eu.
O livro começa com a descoberta do Nenúfar Gigante nas margens do Amazonas na selva da Guiana quando este era uma colónia inglesa. A par dessa descoberta, dá-se a coroação da rainha Victoria.
O livro retrata toda uma sociedade inglesa dessa época, quando os caçadores de plantas traziam novidades para a velha Europa, quando se faziam descobertas, quando as colecções botânicas privadas criavam um status.
Apaixonado como sou pela história da botânica e dos jardins, em especial ingleses, este livro foi como se tivesse sido escrito para mim por encomenda. Aqui encontrei muitas personagens que admiro e que fiquei a conhecer melhor, aqui se falou de orquídeas, da grande exposição de Londres, da evolução das estufas desde as caixas de Wardian até ao Palácio de Cristal e da importância que a descoberta do nenúfar Victoria amazonica (no início chamado de Victoria regia) significou para toda uma sociedade.
Apaixonante para loucos como eu.
May 24, 2013
The book follows the discovery, difficult hothouse cultivation and final showcasing of a giant water lily discovered in the Amazon in 1837. Using the lily almost as a backdrop, the focus is really this 14 year period of the Victorian era itself. Industrialization, colonization, architecture, class structure, science, aristocracy and royalty are all illuminated by this awesome flower. I enjoyed this book from beginning to end. There are many heroes here too, including, Schomburgk, the discoverer of the plant; and Paxton, the Duke of Devonshire’s gardener and "Renaissance man". The author has done a fabulous job of fleshing out the principals with interesting details and created a highly readable narrative.
I am amazed that what was a British national (and possibly multinational) focus of this period..a giant water lily with petals five feet across, is a plant I had never heard of before this book. Now I really want to see one!
I am amazed that what was a British national (and possibly multinational) focus of this period..a giant water lily with petals five feet across, is a plant I had never heard of before this book. Now I really want to see one!
June 1, 2013
Loved it! For all the gardeners, Anglophiles, and 19th century history lovers--this book's a great read. Of course, we learn of the early history of -Victoria regia-, the Amazonian water lily, explorers, attempts to cultivate it, the Queen's presence, etc. But we also gain a fascinating view into the history of hothouses (called "stoves" in England), Wardian cases, the nature of botanical patronage, big figures in British garden history, and most delightfully, a deeply detailed tour of London's 1851 Crystal Palace Exposition, inspired by the water lily and the quest to propagate it in England through magnificent and ever-larger stoves. A lovely read, well-written. Ideal summer beach/bedtime reading, and a great reference for lectures on 19th century botanical exploration.
April 2, 2013
3.5 stars
The Flower of Empire focuses on the water lily in the same manner the tulip mania of 1637 focused on tulips: it’s the backdrop for character study. The mad scurry to get the water lily to germinate and flower in England delves into the hearts involved, and sparks the public’s hunger for virgin discoveries. Ultimately, The Flower of Empire presents a cultural climate of obsession, power, and triumph. It’s not for the impatient or for those who dislike process, but for the most part Holway balances the scholarly with flashes of pop entertainment, offering character idiosyncrasies when the wait for the water lily feels drawn out.
The Flower of Empire focuses on the water lily in the same manner the tulip mania of 1637 focused on tulips: it’s the backdrop for character study. The mad scurry to get the water lily to germinate and flower in England delves into the hearts involved, and sparks the public’s hunger for virgin discoveries. Ultimately, The Flower of Empire presents a cultural climate of obsession, power, and triumph. It’s not for the impatient or for those who dislike process, but for the most part Holway balances the scholarly with flashes of pop entertainment, offering character idiosyncrasies when the wait for the water lily feels drawn out.
August 3, 2013
This book seemed to have everything to interest me. Scientific rivalries, exploration and beautiful flora, all set in the Victorian age. It is well researched and thoroughly referenced. Unfortunately it's barely readable. As a professor it reads to me as though the author previously has been accused of plagiarism. Her use of direct quotes interferes with the flow. She uses several single-word quotes and longer phrases - multiple quotes - in single sentences. She didn't integrate information she lifted out of letters and newspaper stories into her own thoughts. It is a horribly boring read which is unfortunate because the topic could be so exciting.
June 24, 2013
This book was fabulous!! it read like a mystery novel! I kept wanting to read more--the quest for new and more interesting and different plants was so exciting. The quest to build the bigger and better greenhouse that culminated in the building of the Crystal Palace and the 1850 Exposition was wonderful; this book is populated with many historical figures, from Darwin to Queen Victoria! I have recommended this book to anyone who will listen to me!
July 21, 2013
Loved it! All the yummy things rolled into one amazingly researched piece of history.
October 18, 2014
Really excellent, entertaining introduction to the nineteenth-century horticultural world.
August 21, 2016
Good story but a bit boring.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews