276 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 



Consul-General, he continued actively botanizing, and estab- 

 lished and maintained at his own expense an experimental 

 garden at Zanzibar. Not only did he succeed in introducing 

 many valuable economic plants into Central Africa, but sent 

 a large number of flowers home. A successful pioneer in 

 Central Africa was John Buchannan, who went in 1876 as 

 Agriculturalist to the Church of Scotland Mission to Nyassa- 

 land, and sent 1,500 dried specimens to Kew, and also intro- 

 duced new living species to this country. Another worker in 

 the mission-field who was also a collector was Alexander 

 Carson, who died the same year as Buchannan (1896). Other 

 Central African plants have been sent home more recently by 

 Sir Harry Johnson and Mr. Alexander Whyte. 



One of the earliest workers at the Cape was James Bowie, 

 who was sent out by Kew in 1817, and died there in 1869. 

 During the early years of the century great numbers of heaths 

 were sent home, also Mesembryanthemum, Polygalas, and Gera- 

 niums. A good assortment of Cape plants were already in culti- 

 vation by the end of the eighteenth century. Among the bulbs 

 which had arrived about 1790, or even earlier, were Sparaxis, 

 Ixias, Agapanthus, Crinums (capense or longifolium), some of 

 the Nerines, and the Arum lily. In spite of the constant 

 influx of plants from the Cape, it is rather astonishing to find 

 that some bulbs now extremely common did not put in an 

 appearance in this country till towards the end of the century. 

 Freesias, now so popular, only came in 1875 ; Montbretia 

 Pottsii, which now grows like a weed in many places, not 

 until two years later ; and the finer species of Crinum — Moorei 

 in 1874, and the garden hybrid Powellii, which was produced 

 from it, as late as 1888. 



South America contributed a number of striking plants to 

 the stove during this great influx of flowers from all parts of 

 the world. The immense water-lily, afterwards named Vic- 

 toria regia, was first discovered in 1801, but was not generally 

 known till forty years later, and seeds did not germinate in 

 this country before 1849. Soon after the gigantic dimensions 

 of the plant, as grov^Ti at Kew, caused a sensation which was 

 not confined to the gardening world. The collector George 

 Gardiner found no less than 7,000 species in Brazil, some of 



