E. Wilson – Intrepid Plant Hunter
Early 20th century botanist / adventurer remorseless in his search for landscape plants.
"Chinese" Wilson's first trip to China for Harvard's Arnold Arboretum (MA) began in January 100 years ago. His goal? Introduce Asian plants to western landscapes.
Ernest Henry "Chinese" Wilson (1876-1930) introduced over 1,000 garden-worthy species from China and Asia to western horticulture. At least 600 of Wilson's introductions are still in cultivation in modern western landscape gardens. We owe their significance and usefulness to this early 20th century botanist and yes, let us acknowledge it, adventurer. English writer High Johnson describes Wilson as the "most famous and horticulturally important of all plant hunters in China."
American landscape gardeners have special reason for celebrating Wilson and his discoveries in 2007. January marks the centenary of the beginning of Wilson's first plant-hunting trip to China for Harvard's Arnold Arboretum (MA) in 1907. Charles Sprague Sargent, who created the Arnold Arboretum and was its director for 54 years, set in motion the circumstances that made a horticultural hero of Wilson. Sargent arranged the 1907 trip to China, Wilson's later trips to China and Asia, and his eventual employment in Boston by the Arboretum.
Wilson had already traveled twice to China for the British nursery James Veitch and Son:
- In 1899, to seek, find and collect seeds from the elusive handkerchief or dove tree (Davidia involucrata). He also found and collected specimens from hundreds of new plants, including trees, shrubs, and herbaceous species.
- In 1903, to track down the alpine yellow poppywort (Meconopsis integrifolia). He caught his first sight of the regal lily (Lilium regale) along the slopes of the Min Valley while collecting M. integrifolia and another poppy, Meconopsis punicea.
Sargent instructed Wilson to "increase the knowledge of the woody plants of the (Chinese) empire and to introduce into cultivation as many of them as is practicable." Sargent also insisted that Wilson take a camera, a large whole-glass- plate Sanderson, and remarked that cost of another porter to carry it was "not a very important item." Wilson's photographic talent shines forth even today with the haunting and evocative pictures of his explorations.
Wilson, having stopped in England for his wife Helen and daughter Muriel, arrived in Boston in late 1909 to find himself a celebrity with its people. Impressed with Wilson's explorations and plants, they bestowed the nickname of "Chinese" upon him. Although surprised, he was somewhat pleased with his sobriquet.
Among plants in that impressive collection from the first Arboretum trip are two I have in my garden landscape: Cornus kousa var. chinensis (Kousa dogwood) and Clematis tangutica var. obtusiuscula.
Sargent talked Wilson into traveling to China a fourth time to gather more conifer seed and collect more bulbs of Lilium regale (Regal lily). Over 95 percent of the 18,237 lily bulbs gathered on the previous trip rotted on the trip to Boston because Wilson, in order to cut corners, did not have each coated in clay.
Wilson found the home of the regal lily along the slopes of the arid Min valley and wrote "For a brief season this Lily transforms a lonely, semi-desert region into a veritable fairyland." Alas, Wilson's joy in marking 6,000 bulbs for dormant lifting and shipping to Boston was lost when a landslide caught the returning party. A mission doctor set and saved from amputation Wilson's badly broken and infected leg.
Wilson's team successfully returned and lifted the lilies and packed them in clay for shipment. They also collected several other important species including Acer maximowiczii and Sinarundinaria murielae (now Fargesia murielae), a bamboo named after his daughter. This trip also yielded 50,000 herbarium specimens and 1,285 packets of seed. These samples, after identification in Boston, added 4 new genera, 382 new species, and 323 new varieties to the woody plant catalog of China.
Wilson returned to Asia twice more for the Arnold Arboretum:
- In 1914, his third for the Arboretum, to Japan to explore that nation's forests and study its conifers; and
- In 1917, his fourth for the Arboretum and his sixth and final trip to eastern Asia, to little-known islands and Formosa, and to explore the flora of Korea.
Wilson became director of the Arboretum in 1927 upon Charles S. Sargent's death. However, Wilson's career was cut short on 15 October 1930 when he and Helen were killed in an auto accident near Worcester, MA.
©Text and photograph by Georgene A. Bramlage January 2007. Reproduction without permission prohibited
