274 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 
to 80,000 bulbs frequently arriving in one consignment. 
Many well-known species were sent home first by Charles 
Maries, who collected for Veitch in Japan and China about 
3:877-79, and who afterwards became superintendent of the 
Gwalior gardens, until his death in 1902. Primula Ohconica 
and Hydrangea rosea are perhaps his two best-known im¬ 
portations. 
India and Burmah furnished a wide field for the plant col¬ 
lector, and a very large number of plants came from there 
during the first half of the nineteenth century. Researches 
in those countries were greatly facilitated by the encourage¬ 
ment botany received from the East India Company. The 
botanical garden at Calcutta was a centre of activity, and its 
influence was felt far into the Western world. Owing to the 
energy of the three eminent Superintendents, Dr. William 
Roxburgh, who had charge of the garden from 1793 to 1814 ; 
Dr. Nathaniel Wallich, from 1815 to 1856 ; and Dr. Hugh 
Falconer, who was in India from 1830 to 1855, and took over 
the garden in 1848, the country round was explored, and the 
new-found plants were cultivated under their supervision in 
the botanical gardens, and from thence despatched to adorn 
the green-houses of England. The three thick folios of por¬ 
traits of rare plants, by Wallich, 1 gives some idea of the 
wonders first brought to light by the Calcutta garden and its 
staff. In 1847 Sir Joseph Hooker, who had already explored 
the Arctic regions with Ross, turned towards the tropics, and 
during the three following years made the most adventurous 
journeys in Sikkim, Tibet, and Nepaul. Much of his road lay 
through the country of hostile native rulers, who stopped his 
food-supplies and put countless obstacles in the way of his 
progress. In spite of bad weather, biting cold, and the 
roughest of travelling in high altitudes and inhospitable regions, 
he persevered, and was able to enrich English gardens by 
wondrously beautiful Rhododendrons and rock-loving plants 
from the fringes of the eternal snows of the Himalayas. 
The thirst for plant-collecting seems frequently to have been 
shared by several members of a family. Veitch, the famous 
firm of nurserymen of Exeter and Chelsea, who employed many 
1 Planted Asiaticce Raviores, 1830-32. 
