Lady Banks Rose
How hard can it be to find a new genus or species of plant? Isn’t it just a matter of tromping around out in the wilderness looking down at the ground? I wish it were so, but we owe our common garden plants to an extraordinary collection of adventurers who risked their lives to bring to us shrubs, trees, and plants that we tend to take for granted. Their stories could be the basis for many films and novels telling of the dangerous and often horrific conditions while foraging in some wild and downright scary locations.
One of my favorite flowers in my garden is Spiderwort or Tradescantia. This plant as well as its entire genus was named for father and son botanists and plant hunters known as John Tradestcant the Elder and John Tradescant the Younger. The Elder Tradescant was the head gardener for an English Earl in the early 1600’s. The Earl sent his gardener to the Netherlands for fruit trees and this began a long life of travels to bring back botanical specimens. Although the Elder Tradescant never traveled to the American colonies, he received seeds and bulbs from other travelers and introduced many common plants into English gardens. His son was able to travel to North America in 1628 and 1637. He collected many specimens in Virginia to bring back to England, including the Magnolia, tulip tree, and bald cypress. Both Tradescants are buried in the Churchyard of St. Mary’s-at-Lambeth. The church is now the Garden Museum and there is a memorial to father and son in the middle of the museum courtyard. Interestingly, Captain William Bligh of Mutiny on the Bounty fame is buried right next to them.
A name that may be familiar to South Carolinians is Bartram and there is the William Bartram trail which runs from North Carolina to Florida. William Bartram was an intrepid traveler and explorer of the southern states at a time when they were very much wilderness. His main travels were from 1773-1777. His father was a well-known Quaker botanist who sold many plants, shrubs, and trees to England. His two best sellers were sweet gum trees and sumac. We may not have a high opinion of either, but these trees provided fall color to the otherwise drab autumn gardens in England. William worked with his father to provide more “exotic” wild species. They discovered the Franklinia tree growing in Georgia, named it in honor of Benjamin Franklin, and introduced this lovely species to the world. Now extinct in the wild, it is still cultivated by nurseries and sold as an ornamental tree.
Many southern gardens have a Lady Banks rose. This rose was named for the wife of plant hunter, botanist, and director of the Royal Botanic Garden at Kew, Joseph Banks. Banks traveled on Captain James Cook’s first voyage to South America and the Pacific from 1768-1777. Banks collected over 3,600 specimens of plants, most of which were new to Europe. He collected so many plant in Australia that Captain Cook named the large bay near Sydney “Botany Bay.” At Kew, Banks transformed the garden to one where there would be a global exchange of plants and knowledge. Banks sent out plant hunters to the farthest reaches of the Globe. They brought back the Rosa Banksia (later called the Lady Banks Rose) from China and Pelargoniums from South Africa. And hundreds of other plants that we now enjoy in our gardens. We call the Pelargoniums by the name of Geraniums and what would the Heritage be without bright red Geraniums to welcome golfers and guests? During the reign of Geroge III, about 7,000 new species arrived at Kew thanks to Joseph Banks.
I am sure that many of you love Meyer lemons. They fruit so well in our region and are a lovely ornamental small tree as well. We owe the Meyer lemon to one of the most adventurous of the plant hunters. Frank Nicholas Meyer was born in the Netherlands, but emigrated to the United States in 1901 and became an American citizen. He worked to the U.S. Department of Agriculture in their Office of Seed and Plant Introduction. The aim of this office was to seek out new plants that could be imported into our country and which were drought tolerant. Meyer also collected ornamental trees and shrubs for the Arnold Arboretum in Boston. He was responsible for bringing varieties of lilac, pistachio, ornamental maples, and dwarf lemon trees as well as numerous other species from Asia to the United States. At one point he returned to the United States on a Cunard White Star liner only one day after the ill-fated voyage of the Titanic. In 1912.
Meyer may have dodged that tragedy, but the areas to which he was traveling were hot-beds of unrest. Pirates and bandits were common in parts of China and Mongolia where Meyer found his best specimens. Unfortunately, fate caught up with him in 1918 and he left his cabin on a boat on the Yangtze River one night and his body was found by a sailor five days later. He was buried in Shanghai, China. It is not known if he drowned by accident or was killed. The dwarf lemon tree that was discovered by Meyer was named in his honor.
Plant hunters faced many hazards in their travels – avalanches, malaria and other tropical diseases, flash floods, riots and unrest, and venomous snakes to name a few. Their sacrifices make it possible for us to go to a local garden center and find a wealth of interesting plant material, as well as the abundance of produce at our grocery stores. Even our own native plants were collected from the wild by adventurers and made available to us for our pleasure.
