In the Land of the Blue Poppies: The Collected Plant-Hunting Writings of Frank Kingdon Ward (Modern Library Gardening) - Softcover

Kingdon Ward, Frank Bedell

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0812967399 ISBN 13: 9780812967395

Verlag: Random House Publishing Group, 2003

Inhaltsangabe

A Modern Library Paperback Original

During the first years of the twentieth century, the British plant collector and explorer Frank Kingdon Ward went on twenty-four impossibly daring expeditions throughout Tibet, China, and Southeast Asia, in search of rare and elusive species of plants. He was responsible for the discovery of numerous varieties previously unknown in Europe and America, including the legendary Tibetan blue poppy, and the introduction of their seeds into the world’s gardens. Kingdon Ward’s accounts capture all the romance of his wildly adventurous expeditions, whether he was swinging across a bottomless gorge on a cable of twisted bamboo strands or clambering across a rocky scree in fear of an impending avalanche. Drawn from writings out of print for almost seventy-five years, this new collection, edited and introduced by professional horticulturalist and House & Garden columnist Tom Christopher, returns Kingdon Ward to his deserved place in the literature of discovery and the literature of the garden.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Frank Kingdon Ward was born in Manchester, England, in 1885. He was a professional plant collector and explorer for more than forty years and the author of more than twenty-five books, including The Riddle of the Tsangpo Gorges, recounting his journey into the world’s steepest river gorge. He died in 1958.

Michael Pollan is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Botany of Desire (available from Random House Trade Paperbacks) and Second Nature, named one of the best gardening books of the twentieth century by the American Horticultural Society. He is a contributing editor to Harper’s magazine and a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine.

Aus dem Klappentext

rn Library Paperback Original

During the first years of the twentieth century, the British plant collector and explorer Frank Kingdon Ward went on twenty-four impossibly daring expeditions throughout Tibet, China, and Southeast Asia, in search of rare and elusive species of plants. He was responsible for the discovery of numerous varieties previously unknown in Europe and America, including the legendary Tibetan blue poppy, and the introduction of their seeds into the worlds gardens. Kingdon Wards accounts capture all the romance of his wildly adventurous expeditions, whether he was swinging across a bottomless gorge on a cable of twisted bamboo strands or clambering across a rocky scree in fear of an impending avalanche. Drawn from writings out of print for almost seventy-five years, this new collection, edited and introduced by professional horticulturalist and House & Garden columnist Tom Christopher, returns Kingdon Ward to his deserved place in t

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

chapter i

The Plant Hunter Defined Kingdon Ward had no illusions about his qualifications as a horticulturist, botanist, or geographer. He had none, in the conventional sense. Indeed, as someone who remained at heart an outsider all his life, Kingdon Ward seems to have relished this fact. In any event, he knew that the essential qualifications for his work were not university degrees, but rather an ability to withstand hardship and an insatiable appetite for the hunt.

If Kingdon Ward had few illusions about himself, he also was keenly aware of the error into which his work could easily stray. It seems paradoxical, but this man who introduced so many novelties into Western gardens reserved his own admiration for those plants that were, or could become, most common.

Here, reader, you will perhaps perceive a hint of solitude. Plant hunting is not like big-game hunting. It is a job, undertaken for bread and butter as well as for love of flowers, and its less pleasant aspects have to be faced as well as its advantages. The plant hunter does not make up a cheery party of congenial spirits, and go off for three months on full pay. He goes alone, and for a year or two; he goes not days, but weeks and months without seeing or speaking to another white man. And sometimes it hurts.

My own qualifications were somewhat vague. Up to the time when I first embarked upon plant hunting as a career, horticulture was one of the things I had not studied. I was more interested in engines than in how to cultivate plants. And my principal qualification for the job I undertook was, that I happened to be on the China coast—almost as far from Yunnan as is London; and that I had made a journey on foot across the width of China. Incidentally I had studied botany at Cambridge. But botany is not horticulture, and plant hunting is neither.

That anyone should earn his bread and butter by looking for new plants is, I suppose, news to many people; it seems to strike them as curious, to judge by their remarks, and yet more by their scepticism.

“What are you?” they ask me, curiously.

“A plant collector!”

“Yes, but what do you do?” in a tone of exasperation.

“Why, collect plants,” I say brightly.

The introduction of new foreign plants into England on a large scale is a comparatively modern development, and may be said to have begun with the Victorian naturalists. The outstanding figures perhaps were Sir Joseph Hooker and Robert Fortune. Charles Darwin of course introduced several notable plants, as did others. Douglas was a pioneer in North America; von Siebold in Japan. Hooker first brought home to Englishmen the glories of the Himalayan Rhododendrons. To Darwin we owe the discovery of Berberis Darwinii—a plant which in flower is far superior to any of the dozens of Asiatic barberries—and other Andine plants (though B. Darwinii was actually introduced by Mr. Lobb later). Fortune and Henry were pioneers in the vast treasure house of China.

The Victorian naturalists were succeeded by a generation of hardy plant collectors. By the opening of the twentieth century, plant hunting had, like everything else, been commercialized. Thus came about the professional plant collector of to-day. When I joined the ranks, plant hunting was still an adventure: now it is a trade; presently it will be a trade union. Yet incredibly huge and difficult mountain regions remain untrodden by the foot of the collector. It is indeed certain not only that we have as yet only skirmished on the fringes of botanical Asia, but that by far the most difficult part yet remains to be taken in hand. We have been up to the barriers which fence off the garden; we have yet to climb over the wall.

But the craze for the new, merely because it is new, is only a whim. It will pass as surely as did the frenzy for orchids in Victorian times.

The worship of new species is mere idolatry. A beautiful flower is still beautiful, whether millions have seen it, or one or two, or none. In any case “new” is a comparative term. There can be few plants introduced into England which have not been seen, and probably remarked, by the people of their native land. The true collector derives just as much joy from finding a plant which is new to him, whether it has already been “discovered” or not. In any case he is bound to keep on introducing old friends, which are continually dying out in England under the ill-treatment of our presumptuous climate.

The greedy scramble for new species, new varieties, new strains, and new hybrids, just because they are new, is both pathetic and vulgar. We all suffer from the disease,—the nurserymen who want the plants, and the botanists who want to name them, just as much as the collectors themselves. Every collector rejoices in a “new” species; he would be less than human did he not. They are the brokerage on his dealings with Nature. But the inquirer into Nature’s secrets, and the creative mind, do not greatly concern themselves with such dubious small change. Besides, the nurseries turn out better ones. Of course the hardened hucksters of England love that sort of false currency. It glitters; and we are a commercial people.

Plants, like politics, are best left, and ultimately must be left, to the judgment of the public. If the advocate can make out a good case for his pet plant before the bar of public opinion, the public will listen. If they condemn it—so! They are right. Popular plants are the best plants. Those who dwell in their little shrines, prostrate before rare exotics, worship false gods. chapter ii

Good-bye to Civilization Departures were a time of great excitement for Kingdon Ward, but also of considerable tension. He always preferred to hire servants and helpers from the local populations, believing that to bring along outsiders invited conflict with the indigenous peoples. This meant, however, that in a matter of days he had to re- cruit and select personnel on whom he would depend not only for the success of his work but also for his own survival. In addition, though Kingdon Ward preferred to travel light (and could not afford to do otherwise), the last few days at the jumping-off point were a last opportunity to take stock of his equipment and repair any gaps.

What is clear from all his descriptions of leave-takings was Kingdon Ward’s joy in leaving behind civilization of the European variety. All his life he referred to England as “home,” and his books all feature the obligatory statements about his desire to return. But his descriptions of departures, of the marches out from some colonial outpost into the wilderness, always have the high-spirited tone of a boy escaping from school on a long-anticipated holiday.

The next few days were not idle ones. I was anxious to start and pushed on with our preparations, for there were many things to be attended to before we launched ourselves into the sea of hills. Most important item, I had to engage a cook, also to hire transport for eighteen days’ march to Fort Hertz.

Should I take an Indian Mug or a Burmese to cook? The Mug would be the better cook without a doubt, but he would also be more of a foreigner. Burmese servants, on the other hand, are horribly superior persons. I once had a Burmese “boy” who, on a night when I had friends to dinner, was wired for by his sister. He started at once, before we returned from the Club. It seemed she was dying. After dinner we went to see a native dance in the neighbourhood. The first person I saw in the crowd was my “boy” strutting about to the admiration of all the village maidens and the envy of the men; for with him was an extremely pretty girl, not, I gathered, his sister, who by this time was dead. He...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Random House Publishing Group
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2003
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0812967399
• ISBN 13: 9780812967395
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 289
• Herausgeber: Christopher Tom
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: GPSR Kontakt; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Deutschland