The Veitch Family Nurseries Plant Hunters Hybriders
It is difficult to imagine, in the present day, how much of the world in the mid 1800’s was inaccessible, dangerous and unexplored terrain.
Between 1840 and 1914 the Veitch Nurseries had introduced into cultivation, 1281 plants, new to Britain either as the result of their exploration of countries or by hybridisation and cultivation.
James Veitch had the business acumen and foresight to recognise that to expand his business he needed to take the financial risk of funding speculative expeditions to collect plants from foreign countries from the wild.
There are various books, such as Hortus Veitchii by James H Veitch, that concentrate on the specimens of plants the Plant Hunters gathered for the Veitch Nurseries but I became fascinated by the trials and tribulations faced by the Botanical Collectors themselves.
There was no quick hopping on a Plane to get to these far off lands.
The expeditions required months of travel by ship, encountering raging storms, pirates, and shipwrecks to themselves or their collections that they were sending home. They traversed difficult terrains of mountains, dessert, impenetrable jungle, or swamps, encountering avalanches, landslides, earthquakes and rapids. They were plagued by insects, attacked by wild animals and hostile natives, some of them head-hunters. They suffered or died from tropical diseases such as Malaria, Yellow Fever, and Typhus.
This was not a job for the faint hearted.
James Veitch had the ability to choose employees whose loyalty and capabilities both at home and in the distant foreign lands largely contributed to his success.
William Lobb collected in South America 1840-44, 1845-1848 and California from 1849-1857
James Veitch wanted someone who knew what to collect for a nurseryman, rather than one who only appraised plants with a botanist’s ego.
William Lobb was the first of the 22 collectors that would be sent out by Veitch over the years.
He was born in Egloshayle, Cornwall in 1809, had worked as a gardener for the Veitch Nurseries since 1837, and in his leisure had studied Botany. He had been suggested as suitable to be sent out by his brother Thomas, who also worked for Veitch, as “He cherished an ardent desire for travel and adventure.” [Hortus Veitchii by James H Veitch]
In 1840 he sailed to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil a country of mountains, stretches of desert and impenetrable jungle, mostly unexplored. He travelled first to the Organ mountains from where, over the next four years, he sent home a Begonia, Passiflora and several Orchids. He also sent back plants from Argentina, Ecuador, Peru, Panama and Chile where he sent home seeds of the Monkey Puzzle which as he was unable to climb the trees, he had shot down the cones with his rifle.
He made another trip to South America and later in 1849, a trip to San Francisco, the year of the Gold Rush, a time of chaos and lawlessness. Lobb was not distracted and continued his dedicated search, sending home seeds of the Giant Redwood.
He died of paralysis in San Francisco in 1863 aged 54.
Thomas Lobb collected in India and Malaya from 1843-1860
Thomas was William’s younger brother and he also worked at the Exeter Nurseries.
In Hortus Veitchii “It is not saying too much to assert that during the long period [Thomas] Lobb collected in the East, British Gardens were enriched with more beautiful plants of Indo-Malayan origin than any other collector of his own or any other time.”
While on collecting in the Philippines he suffered injury and exposure and had to have his leg amputated.
Richard Pearce collected in Chile Peru and Bolivia from 1859-1866
Born at Stoke Devonport Devon, he worked in the Exeter Nursery and brought back the Tuberous Begonia. On another visit to South America for another company he died of Yellow Fever in his early thirties.
John Gould Veitch collected in Japan, South Sea Islands and Australia from 1860-1870
The ship he was on was wrecked in Ceylon (Sri Lanka), but he managed to travel on another vessel via Hong Kong, Canton and Shanghai to Nagasaki. Foreigners’ movements were severely restricted but he was invited by the Consul General of Japan, Sir Rutherford Alcock, to join the first British ascent of Mount Fuji. [From Chelsea to Mount Fuji the legacy of Veitch Nurseries by Virginia Mills http://www.kew.org]
After sending his collections back to the Nursery, he travelled on to the Philippines in search of the Orchid Phalaenopsis. He returned to England in 1863 before setting off again to Australia and Fiji.
David Bowman collected in Brazil in 1866
Bowman was robbed of all his possessions and plant specimens just before returning home. He stayed on to try to recollect his specimens but died of a violent attack of Dysentery in Bogota.
Henry Hutton collected in Java and the Malay Archipelago from 1866-1868
He spent 12 months in residence hoping to acclimatize himself to the climate but unfortunately, he died.
Carl Kramer collected in Japan and Costa Rica from 1869-1870
He was commissioned to search for orchids to supplement John Gould Veitch’s collection, but he failed entirely, as he was not cut out for the arduous work.
Gottlieb Zahn collected in Central America from 1869-1870
Collected in Panama but drowned when proceeding to Costa Rica.
George Downton collected in Central and South America from 1870-1873
Was sent out to find Orchids in Central America which he sent back to Chelsea. He went to join Endres in Cost Rica but the bulk of what they collected died enroute home.
J. Henry Chesterton collected in South America from 1870-1878
Previously employed as a valet to a gentleman who travelled widely. He contacted the Veitch Nurseries for information on the best way to transport plant specimens on long sea journeys through various climates with fluctuations in temperature. He returned from a visit to South America with an orchid collection that were carefully packed and cared for. Described as a reckless spirit, he died while hunting orchids in Colombia in 1883.
A.R.Endres collected in Costa Rica from 1871-1873
Endres was of mixed race and was employed to continue to search for Orchids after Zahn’s drowning.
Gustav Wallis collected in Brazil, New Guinea and South America from 1872-1874
Wallis was born deaf in Hamburg, Germany and only learnt to speak when he was 6 years old. Despite his handicap he went on to master a number of languages.
After his contract finished with Veitch he continued to collect in South America. In 1878 he was dangerously ill with fever, he recommenced work but a second bout plus dysentery resulted in his death in Ecuador.
Walter Davis collected in South America from 1873-1876
Crossed the Andes mountains to heights of 17,000 feet and travelled the length of the Amazon.
Peter C.M. Veitch collected in Australia, South Sea Islands and Borneo from 1875-1878
Peter was Harry Veitch’s cousin who “arranged that he should visit, on behalf of the firm, the clients in Australasia and at the same time, introduce to England any plants likely to be of value for horticultural purposes.” [Hortus Veitchii James Herbert Veitch]
Peter sailed for Sydney but soon moved on to Fiji and then on to the South Sea Islands. The plants he collected were sent back to England but unfortunately the Fiji Island plants were lost in a gale on the way home.
For the next two years he visited Australia and New Zealand but in 1877 on his way to New Guinea, he was ship-wrecked with his plant collection which once again was lost.
Between 1877-78 he explored Mount Kinabalu in Borneo with Frederick Burbidge returning to England with the collection.
Guillermo Kalbreyer collected in West Coast of Africa and Colombia from 1876-1881
On an expedition to West Africa Native Traders hostile to foreigners meant he was unable to penetrate far into the country and had to restrict travel to the coast.
The great heat of Africa and frequent attacks of malaria were detrimental to Kalbreyer’s health so Veitch sent him to the Highlands and mountains of Colombia, a more Temperate climate. On return the river was low extending a 10 day journey into a month, rendering half his collection useless.
Christopher Mudd collected in South Africa in 1877
Son of a former Curator of Cambridge Botanic Gardens, he had no aptitude for collecting.
Frederick William Burbidge collected in Borneo from 1877-1878
Burbridge had been a journalist, and a student at Chiswick and Kew.
He wrote in great detail of his experiences in his book “The Gardens of the Sun”.
Burbridge was successful in bringing back specimens of the Great Pitcher Plant which had eluded Thomas Lobb who although he reached the base of the mountain where they grew, Thomas was thwarted by the hostility and extortion of the natives.
He wrote that Borneo had no roads or bridges, alligators of enormous size, and clouds of mosquitos, of fording creeks up to their neck and only being aware of attacks of jungle leeches when your blood seeped through your trousers.
He died of heart failure aged 58 in 1905.
Charles Maries collected in Japan and China for 1877-1879
In Japan after scaling a mountain to 3500ft he encountered impenetrable bamboo scrub and although he could see the conifer he was seeking, had to turn back. He did succeed by scaling the other side of the mountain.
After traversing swamps, gorges and swollen rivers, he shipped his collection on a vessel containing sea-weed which when it got wet, burst open the vessel, which sunk. The box of seeds was rescued and put on another boat which quickly capsized and sank. He had to retrace his steps and replace his collection. On another trip he suffered severe sunstroke.
He was not so successful in China, where he was not gentle enough, where he was threatened, caught, robbed and beaten up by bandits. [The Quest for Plants by A.M. Coats p156]
Charles Curtis collected in Madagascar, Borneo, Sumatra, Java and the Moluccas from 1878-1884
Charles was born in Venn, Landkey, Barnstaple in 1853 to William and Mary Curtis the youngest of eight children. He was baptised at the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel in Landkey 19th February 1854. Along with his four brothers he started as a garden boy for Bales Nursery, Westacott, Landkey.
To further his training, in 1874 he joined the Veitch Royal Exotic Nursery in Chelsea where he met the company’s Plant Hunters.
In 1878 he had the opportunity himself to be sent out to Mauritius and Madagascar. His first collection was loaded on a raft to be floated down river, when an African helper cut the mooring rope, causing the plants to be lost.
Later he did manage to send back specimens of the Pitcher plant, Nepenthes madagascariensis, and other Tropical plants.
Later in Dutch Borneo, in a boating accident, he lost another collection, his possessions and nearly his life.
On the termination of his contract with Veitch in 1884, following a recommendation from Kew Gardens, he was appointed Assistant Superintendent of Forests and Gardens in the Straits Settlement in the Penang region. His work included the development of commercial crops where his botanical experiments with the Rubber plant defined how young a plant could be tapped for rubber without affecting its long levity and enabled him to procure seeds for re-export to other counties where they were desperately needed.
Subsequently, he was appointed Superintendent of the newly created Penang Botanic Gardens. The 55 acre horseshoe shaped valley of lush tropical jungle, contained a 500ft waterfall and was surrounded by a range of hills 2500ft in elevation. He was to work on it for the next 6 years, the first to clear the jungle.
He was responsible for transforming the waste land of an old derelict granite quarry into a magnificent tropical garden, one of “the most beautiful in the East”. [Obit. Gardener’s Chronicle Aug 1928]
In 1887 he married Alice Marion Barr, from a local family, in Penang. They were married for 7 years and had three daughters.
In 1891 the family returned for a year in England owing to the conditions in Penang adversely affecting their health. His daughters are living in Barnstaple with their aunt Martha Curtis in 1901.
This ill health continued in 1894 when both Charles and his wife Alice suffered from a fever which caused her death.
He returned in 1903 to live with his three daughters at Laurel House, Sunnybank, Barnstaple Devon. He died in 1928 five week after undergoing surgery.
Along with his legacy as a plant collector, respected botanist and creative landscape designer, was the significant impact he made on botanical research of the late 1800’s.
David Burke collected in East Indies, Burma, Philippines, New Guinea and Columbia from 1881-1897
His expeditions were in search of Orchids. He lived as a native with the native populations. He was still collecting up to the time of his death in Amboina, Indonesia in 1897. Prior to leaving on his last expedition he said ”I’m off again and if I make a good meal for someone I hope I give full satisfaction”.
James Herbert Veitch collected in India, Malaysia, Japan, Korea, Australia and New Zealand from 1891-1893
Rather than expeditions into the wild James concentrated on visiting Botanical Gardens. He travelled to Rome and Naples to Ceylon to Lahore to Calcutta, Japan, Korea, Australia and New Zealand.
In Australia he found it difficult to know if he was collecting small seeds or dust and ‘stooping to collect on the hard baked earth…in blazing sun is not a pastime to be chosen’. In contrast when moving on to New Zealand he was much hampered by the winter snow.
Series of letters of the gardens he visited are in “A Traveller’s Notes” 1896
James wrote Hortus Veitchii, a history of the Veitch Nurseries, their plant hunters, hybridiser and the more remarkable new plants brought to Britain.
He died of paralysis in 1907.
E.H.“Chinese” Wilson collected in Central and Western China and on the Tibetan Frontier from 1899-1905
Wilson went to China in search of a Handkerchief tree seen 12 years before, with a hand drawn map covering 20,000 sq miles. On arrival at the remote site he found a stump and a newly built wooden house. There were no known specimens in the area but Wilson managed to locate a grove of the trees nearby.
On his second visit to China for Veitch Nurseries, he almost drowned when his boat was shattered in rapids on jagged rocks.
Wilson was the last Plant hunter to be sent out by Veitch Nurseries but he continued to collect for other agencies.
On a third trip he contracted Malaria and almost starved on another trip.
In a high wild valley in Szechuan subject to violent wind storms, a boulder dislodged to fall and break Wilson’s leg in two places. He fashioned a splint from his camera tripod, but before he could travel homeward a 50 beast mule train approached travelling in the opposite direction. The mountainside path was too narrow for them to pass so Wilson lay across the path and the mules stepped over him
By the time he had been carried back to the nearest Missionary Post gangrene had set in. Wilson refused to have his leg amputated. Luckily for him the infection atrophied but left him with one leg shorter that the other which he called his “Lily limp”. [Plant hunters by Tyler Whittle]
He died in 1930 with his wife in a car accident in America.
Legacy
There were Plant hunters who were academics, who wrote about their expeditions and there were those, equally extraordinary, about whom we know little other than from other people’s writing.
In the introduction to Seeds of Fortune – A Gardening Dynasty by Sue Shepard, Alan Titchmarsh says “there can be few gardens in Britain today that do not contain a reminder of its achievements. The influence of the Veitch Nursery empire on the development of ornamental horticulture in 19th century Britain cannot be stressed too highly”.
References:
Hortus Veitchii by James Herbert Veitch
Plant Hunters by Tyler Whittle
The Quest for Plants by A.M. Coats
The Gardens of the Sun by F.W. Burbridge
Gardener’s Chronicle 1928
…Sandi Vass, Assitant Librarian
Tales From the Archives 