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The Garden Magazine, August, 1923 
to the Indies discovered America and the “New World’’ was added to 
western knowledge. 
After establishing themselves in India the Portuguese pushed their 
discoveries eastward. In 1511 they conquered Malacca and from there 
in 1516 one of them, Captain Raphael Pestrello, took passage in a 
Chinese junk and reached Canton. In 1517 a small Portuguese fleet 
under the command of Ferdinando Andrade reached Canton and was 
permitted to trade there. In 1537 the Portuguese established them¬ 
selves at Macao and have maintained themselves there ever since. 
During the height of their sea-power they had other trading stations 
on the coast of China—Amoy and Ningpo for example—but these hold¬ 
ings were precarious and temporary. 
If the Portuguese introduced any ornamental plants into Europe 
from China history has no record of them. But of the famous medi¬ 
cines and drugs of China the Portuguese traded largely in camphor, 
cassia-bark, rhubarb, china-root, galangal, and others. They also 
introduced the Sweet Orange from China into Portugal. Tradition 
says that Juano de Castro, Viceroy of India from 1545 to his death in 
1548, sent a living tree of the Chinese Orange to Lisbon to the garden 
of Count St. Laurent. The value of that most estimable fruit, the 
orange, is probably more highly appreciated to-day than ever before, 
but it is difficult for the present age to understand the enormous value 
the Middle Ages attached to medicines of vegetable origin. 
In this connection it should be remembered that Botanic Gardens 
originated as gardens to cultivate medicinal plants. The earliest 
botanical writings are “herbals” and treatises very largely devoted 
to extolling the curative properties possessed by plants in general. 
To the cultivation and classification of these plants for medicinal pur¬ 
poses both gardening and botany owe their origin. The wonderful 
old Chinese herbal, the “Pun Tsao,” is one of the most famous works 
on medicinal plants in any language. The development of gardens to 
adorn the home surroundings and the growing of flowers purely for 
aesthetic reasons came into being as nations developed culture and 
leisure. Thus it is that the love of flowers and gardens is innate in 
such old peoples as the Chinese and Japanese. And it is fitting that 
China (whose medicines were favored above all others) should also 
possess a wealth of flowers, many of which to-day are the most familiar 
and most prized possessions of Western gardens. That my readers 
may obtain an accurate idea of our indebtedness to both China and 
Japan I tell of each country separately; but geographical discoveries 
and trade intercourse by Western nations in a large measure synchron¬ 
ized. 
The Spaniards conquered the Philippines in 1543 and made several 
more or less ineffectual attempts to obtain trading posts in China, but 
our gardens owe nothing to this race. The Dutch were the next great 
sea-power to arise, and one by one Portuguese possessions were taken by 
them. In 1380 the power of Portugal began definitely to wane; in 
1655 Ceylon was captured from them by the Dutch and this nation 
became mistress of the Indian seas. The Dutch made many attempts 
to establish themselves in China and had resort to much that was 
both obsequious and undignified, but little success attended all their 
efforts. They established themselves in Formosa and built Fort Zea- 
landia, the modern Takao. In Japan they were more successful and 
for a couple of centuries enjoyed, along with the Chinese and under 
galling restrictions, a monopoly of the trade with that land. 
Thirty-six years after the re-discovery of China by the Portuguese 
the first Christian missionaries made their appearance there. In 
1332, St. Francis Xavier, a Jesuit, started from Goa in a royal vessel 
and landed at Sancian, an island near Macao, where the Portuguese 
had a settlement. But he was disappointed in his hope of beginning 
missionary work among the Chinese and died a few months after his 
arrival. Thirty years later the Jesuits succeeded in establishing them¬ 
selves in China and among them was Matthaeus Ricci, who holds one 
of the most conspicuous places in the history of Chinese missions. 
The Gardener’s Debt to the Jesuits 
T O THE Jesuits the world is profoundly indebted for its knowledge 
of things Chinese, and not least are garden-lovers under obligation 
to them for making known the rich floral wealth of that land. Quite 
naturally the economic plants and medicines were the first vegetable 
products the Jesuits wrote about and the information they supplied 
was duly set forth by the early writers of books on China. All the 
early works on China give prominence to the many valuable economic 
plants the country is remarkable for. In 1656 a Jesuit, a Pole by birth, 
Michael Boym, published a work entitled “ Llora Sinensis,” but this 
gives an account of only twenty-two plants of which the majority be¬ 
long to the Indian Archipelago. Twenty-one are represented by en¬ 
gravings, and three of the plants figured—the Pine-apple ( Ananas saliva ), 
Guava ( Psidium Guajava), and Custard-apple ( Anona squamosa) —are 
American. The presence of these plants in China at this early date is 
a most interesting fact, especially since they already possessed estab¬ 
lished Chinese names. 
The first seeds of plants from northern China and the first dried 
specimens from that region were sent by a Jesuit, Lather d’Incarville, 
a Lrenchman, who is commemorated by the genus Incarvillea, well- 
known for its beautiful flowers. Lather d’Incarville was born in 1706 
and was a pupil of the great Lrench botanist, Bernard de Jussieu. 
In 1740 he joined the Chinese mission of Jesuits and died at Peking in 
1757. D’Incarville applied himself assiduously to the study of Chinese 
plants and amassed a fine collection of dried specimens which were 
sent to Paris. A few only were described at the time, and the bulk re¬ 
mained undetermined for more than a century, until 1882 to be exact. 
It was d’Incarville who sent to Paris seeds from which were raised in 
Europe the first of such famous trees as Sophora japonica, Ailanthus 
altissima, Cedrela sinensis, Koelreuteria paniculata, Gleditsia sinensis 
and such well-known shrubs as Syringa villosa, Caragana chamlagu, 
Lycium chinense, Vitex incisa and the invaluable China Aster ( Calli- 
stephus chinensis). 
Another Jesuit, Joannis de Louriero, a Portuguese, published the 
first post-Linnaean flora of southern China, under the title of “Llora 
Cochinchinensis ” in 1788. These most worthy men were typical of 
many other of their own and other orders of the Roman Catholic faith 
who have contributed so largely to the world’s sum of knowledge. 
Their footsteps have been worthily followed by others and especially 
in the latter half of the 19th century by such Lrench priests as Ar- 
mand David, J. M. Delavay, J. A. Soulie, P. Farges, E. Bodinier; 
and an Italian, G. Giraldi. All are dead, but their names recur in 
many garden plants, the work they did lives, and our gardens are the 
more beautiful in consequence. 
The Three Great Forces of Discovery 
S EA-POWER, trade, and religion are the three forces that have 
made the great lasting world conquests and this is well shown by 
the story of plant introductions. 
As Britain rose to be mistress of the oceans so she pushed her trade 
and established herself a warden of the Seven Seas. In 1637 English 
ships first visited Canton and in 1684 by force of arms England ob¬ 
tained a foothold in Canton and this she has never relinquished. 
Slowly but inexorably she forced trading concessions at other points 
on the China coasts few of which have ever been abandoned. 
On December 31, 1622, a Royal Charter to the English East India 
Company was granted by Queen Elizabeth. To this old trading com¬ 
pany, parent of many others, our gardens are immensely indebted. 
Its business was trade, but in furtherance of that it acquired and ad¬ 
ministered vast areas in India, lesser ones in Malaya, and several posts 
in China. It traded in all and every sort of marketable commodity, 
adding both wealth and prestige to England. All concerned in its de¬ 
velopment waxed prosperous and its directors became patrons of art 
and science. With Sir Joseph Banks directing the development of 
Kew Gardens and President of the Royal Society of London, the ser¬ 
vices of the East India Company were enlisted to introduce useful 
and ornamental plants from India and China. The close of the 18th 
century saw plants pouring into England from all parts of the world; 
and not least, where merit be considered, from China. 
The first dried specimens of Chinese plants to reach Europe were 
gathered by surgeons of the East India Company’s ships. One Samuel 
Brown seems to have been first, followed by Messrs. Cunningham, 
Keir, and Barclay. Many of these were sent to James Petiver and 
Leonard Plukenet who describe and figure a number of them in their 
books published early in the 18th century. The largest collection was 
that of James Cunningham who reached the Chusan Islands in 1701 
and remained there until 1703. Among his plants figured by Petiver 
are the familiar Gardenia florida; Vegetable Lamb ( Cibotium barometp)', 
the early flowering, fragrant Chimonanthus fragrans; the Chinese 
Persimmon ( Diospyros kaki); the well-known Sophora japonica; Cryp- 
tomeria japonica ; and Cunninghamia lanceolata, named for Cunning¬ 
ham and the most valuable Chinese conifer. 
The Birthplace of Our Roses 
T HE earliest plant introductions from China were from Canton 
into India during the latter part of the 17th and early in the 18th 
centuries. Among them were the China Monthly Rose ( Rosa chinensis) 
and its small flowered variety semperflorens which were afterward 
