310 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 



Dr. W. Botting Hemsley, who has worked at the classification 

 of this vast collection, writing in 1901, stated that many of the 

 new varieties and species were finer than any already in cultiva- 

 tion, and the new genera include many of great worth. 



When the twentieth century dawned, hardly any of these 

 had, as a sixteenth-century writer would have said, " become 

 denizens of our English gardens." No wonder that nursery- 

 men thirsted for a share of the spoils. The intrepid spirit of 

 former adventurers has not ceased to stir British gardeners to 

 make strenuous efforts in the cause of science, and collectors in 

 many climes still have difficulties to encounter, in spite of the 

 comforts of civilization, which rapid communication has 

 brought to the utmost parts of the earth. No sooner had 

 Messrs. Veitch decided to send a collector to obtain a supply 

 of the best of the plants newly discovered in China, especially 

 of Davidia involucrata and Meconopsis integrifolia, than Mr. 

 E. H. Wilson, who was well suited to the purpose, was found 

 ready to undertake the commission. He arrived in Hong Kong 

 in June, 1899, and during his first trip to consult with Dr. 

 Henry, then in Sczemao, in Yunnan, he found the new Jasmi- 

 num primulinum, and started on a longer journey in February, 

 1900, making Ichang, on the Yangtze, his headquarters. Un- 

 dismayed by the Boxer riots, he remained at his post, and found 

 numberless new plants, such as Astilhe Davidii and Clematis 

 montana rubens, in the neighbouring mountain ranges. Again 

 he returned to China, and in January, 1903, started once more 

 up the Yangtze, and penetrated to the snowy peaks of Tibet. 

 The account of the journey is full of interest from a botanical 

 point of view, and is as replete with hardships as the most 

 adventurous could desire.^ First, the rapids of the Yangtze, 

 a series of dangerous obstacles, where wrecks are frequent and 

 many lives are lost, had to be passed. Beyond Kiatung the 

 journey to Tatien-lu and on into the mountain fastnesses was 

 made on foot, and it was at 11,000 feet above the sea that Mr. 

 Wilson first sighted the flower he was in search of. From 

 1,000 feet higher up to an altitude of 14,500 feet, miles and miles 

 of Alpine meadows were covered with the exquisite yellow 



1 The Gafdener's Chronicle, June, 1905, and continued in some thirty 

 numbers. 



