The Plant Hunters

by Toby Musgrave, Will Musgrave, Chris Gardner

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.

Genres: Gardening, Nonfiction, History, Science, Nature

175 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 5, 1998

Reviews

[M · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I'd heard of a few of the "plant hunters" featured in this book, I did not previously understand either nor the occupational hazards of this vocation. Extremities of weather, terrain, foreign illnesses, and political turmoil made the search for exotic plants uncomfortable at best and dangerous at worst. The demand among European gardeners, horticulturalists, and botanists for ever more diverse specimens fueled this campaign. There were some great stories in this book and interesting information about the origin of plants now found in gardens around the world. I found it to be easy reading.

[Douglas · Rating 2 out of 5]

Anachronistic, uncritical, and nostalgic for empire and British power. How many quotes do we need about "smelly" or otherwise undesirable peoples? Is that why we bought the book? I realise explorers wrote those words, but a poor choice their inclusion here, in a "lightweight" book designed for a giftshop... And despite its expensive printing, woefully short of plant pictures: if you're not already familiar with many, many garden plants, the names will go right by. The focused section on plants introduced by each subject at the end of each chapter also features very few pictures, a choice difficult to understand.

[Chris Leuchtenburg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Amazing tales of adventure and often misadventure seeking out new plants for wealthy Anglo gardens. For instance, during Joseph Banks ‘successful’ voyage with Cook, he led two of his servants to a cold, wet, exhausted death near Tierra del Fuego. Eventually, 7 out of ten in his party died, mostly of disease in Jakarta. The authors have a gardener’s view of exotic plants, without a smidgen of interest in native plants nor the problem of invasives. Their Eurocentric view of imperialism and the brutality of these aristocrats could be excused as simply naive. Great stories, though.

[Phil · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent history of the first men to venture in the field searching for new and valuable species of plants for science and for cultivation by nurseries. Almost every expedition was filled with a great deal of risk and possibility of failure. The story of these men, what they went through and what they were willing to go through for the purpose of securing the plant and or seeds is a remarkable story very well told by the authors.

I highly recommend it.

[Claire Bate-Roullin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting introduction to the world of plant hunters, yet the amount of spelling and grammar errors is disappointing...