Augustine Henry and theExploration of theChinese Flora

E. Charles Nelson

The plant-collector’s job is to uncover the hiddenbeauties of the world, so that others may sharehis joy ....- Frank Kingdon Ward, From China to HkamtiLong

Although he is generally believed to havebeen born in Ireland, Augustine Henry wasborn in Dundee, Scotland, on July 2, 1857.His father, Bernard, was a native of CountyDerry in the North of Ireland, and hismother was a local girl, Mary MacNamee.She met Bernard Henry while he was visit-ing his married sister, who lived in Dundee.After their marriage, and shortly after Au-gustine’s birth, Bernard and Mary Henry re-turned to Ireland with their son and settledin Cookstown in County Tyrone. Bernardowned a grocery shop in the town and alsobought and sold flax.

Austin, as Augustine was called, went toCookstown Academy. He was a brilliantscholar and eventually gained a place in theQueen’s College, Galway, where he studiednatural science and philosophy; he grad-uated in 1877 at the age of 20 with a first-class degree. In the following year he ob-tained a Master of Arts degree at the Queen’sCollege in Belfast. After that he spent a yearin London studying medicine in one of theteaching hospitals. During a visit to Belfastabout 1879 he met Sir Robert Hart, who re-cruited him for the Imperial Maritime Cus-toms Service in China. Henry completed his

studies as rapidly as he could, obtained hismedical qualifications, passed the ChineseCustoms Service examinations, for which hehad acquired a working knowledge ofChinese, and left for China in the autumn of1881.

Henry remained in the customs serviceuntil the end of 1900, during which time hemade considerable collections of the nativeChinese flora. Ernest Wilson is reported tohave said that "no one in any age has con-

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tributed more to the knowledge of Chineseplants than this scholarly Irishman," and in

The portrait of Augustine Henry in this photo-graph hangs in the National Botanic Gardens inDublin, Ireland. It was pamted by Celia Harrison.

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1929 the second fascicle of Icones Plan-tarum Sinicarum was published in Beijing(Peking) with the following dedication:

Augustine Henry through whose assiduous bo-tanical exploration of Central and South-WestemChina the knowledge of our flora has been greatlyextended.

Other botanists shared these opinions, al-though Arthur Grove commented thatHenry "was more concerned in botanicalexploration than in horticultural exploita-tion, and thought more of getting a specimensafely to Kew than of getting the seedswhich might enable the particular plant tobe raised" for cultivation in the British Isles.But that is an unfair comment. Henry wasnot oblivious to horticultural potential, butbecause he was occupied by his work at thecustoms office he could engage in the task of

plant hunting and seed collecting only in hisfree time. Seed collecting was, and still is, atime-consuming task, requiring two visits toa habitat, one to collect the plant in flowerfor identification and a second to obtain ripeseeds. Henry’s first letter to Kew accom-panied seeds of the lacquer tree (Rhus ver-niciflua) and in the next few years he sentother seeds, including Camellia euryoides,Rosa banksiae, Buddleia davidii, and a lin-den (Tilia tuan). On leaving Yichang inMarch 1889 he brought with him bulbs of anorange-flowered lily, which he gave toCharles Ford, who forwarded some to Kew;this was the Henry lily (Lilium henryi 1,which is widely cultivated in gardens today(and has the advantage of being a lime-toler-ant species).

Henry in China

For the first few months of his time in

China, Henry was stationed in Shanghai. In

March 1882 he was assigned to Yichang("Ichang" in Henry’s correspondence), a porton the Yangtze River, about a thousandmiles inland, near the borders of Hubei andSichuan provinces. There he served as theassistant medical officer and also performedcustoms duties. For a while he spent his lei-sure time on shooting trips in the nearbycountryside, but he was a poor shot and in1884 he began to pursue less mobile crea-tures : plants.

In his diary he recorded his first botanicalexcursion on November 25, 1884, when hecrossed the river at Yichang and collectedsome plants near the village of Shiliujing.On March 20, 1885, he wrote to the directorof the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, sayingthat a number of medicinal plants were cul-tivated around Yichang. He reported that"there seem to be a fair number of interest-

ing plants; and as this part of China is notvery well known to botanists interestingspecimens might be obtained." Henry con-fessed that he knew very little of botany, buthe offered to collect specimens and sendthem to Kew "if you think they would proveuseful. "

About the same time he wrote to a Dr.Wales regarding botanical work. His letterwas passed on to Henry Hance (1827-1886),who was one of the leading experts on theChinese flora at that time as well as Britishvice-consul in Canton. Hance replied onApril 1, 1881, suggesting some useful booksand recommending that "in order to work atso novel and comparatively unknown a florain a tolerably satisfactory manner, a student

The Henry honeysuckle (Lonicera henryi). /.Drawing by Michael Grassi.

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ought to have a fairly good herbarium and avery considerable library, with all the impor-tant systematic monographs and memoirson families & genera." He suggested toHenry that "any person with a love ofbotany can do invaluable service even bycollecting, whilst both leisure and want ofpecuniary means may render it impossiblefor him to attempt to attack the study" on alarge scale.The value of that advice to Henry may be

gauged by the fact that the letter in which itwas written and a second one containing arecipe for an insect repellent to preserve her-barium specimens are the only letters thatsurvive among Augustine Henry’s papersfrom his first tour of duty in China. Noteven the reply of Sir Joseph Hooker, directorof Kew, survives from the voluminous corre-

spondence that Henry conducted withbotanists after 1885.

Having been advised by Hance, and un-doubtedly encouraged by Hooker, Henrybegan to collect assiduously and thereby "toopen the treasure chest of the Chineseflora." "

Other botanists, amateur and professional,had collected at Yichang before, but becausethey were eclipsed by Augustine Henry,their work is little known and their collec-tions do not seem to amount to much.Charles Maries (c. 1851-1902) was sent toChina by James Veitch, the famous Londonnurseryman, in 1879. According to Veitch helacked staying power and did not get on wellwith the Chinese, who resented his"difficile" nature and destroyed his collec-tions. Thus Maries returned to England withvery few plants. Unlike Henry, Maries wason a commercial expedition; he was not aleisured explorer without deadlines or con-

straints. He had to be single minded and col-lect seeds and bulbs of plants that would beprofitable for his employer. Maries did makesome notable discoveries at Yichang, includ-ing the Chinese witch hazel (Hamamelismollis which was raised from his seed byVeitch but grew unrecognized in the Londonnursery for almost 20 years.Another person who collected at Yichang

before Henry was Thomas Watters, by coin-cidence also Irish. The coincidence is moreremarkable in that Watters was the brotherof Augustine Henry’s sweetheart, HarrietWatters. Harriet turned down Henry’s pro-posal of marriage but corresponded with himfor many years while he was in China.Thomas Watters was a scholar with a specialinterest in Chinese Buddhism, and he was amember of the British consular service inChina from 1863 until 1894. In 1878 he was

appointed acting consul in Yichang and dur-ing his free time collected herbarium speci-mens for Hance. Watters also responded to arequest made by the authorities at Kew formaterials on economic botany; at Yichanghe discovered the service viburnum (Vibur-num utile/, which was used for makingpipestems. His other notable find was theChinese primrose (Primula sinensis). Wat-ters sent some living plants to Charles Fordat the botanical garden in Hong Kong, butdoes not seem to have sent seeds or livingplants to the British Isles. It is said that Wat-ters and Henry met in China, but no docu-ments describing such a meeting exist.

Augustine Henry, therefore, was in vir-tually unexplored territory. It was an area ofoutstanding botanical riches, "the Klondikeof plant gold." Between November 1884 andFebruary 1889 Henry discovered about 50Uspecies new to Western scientists, about 25

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new genera, and one plant, Trapella sinensis,that is now in a family by itself, theTrapellaceae. He made use of native collec-tors, whom he trained to bring dried speci-mens to him, although they were not asproductive as Henry wished. He combinedthe collection of herbarium specimens withstudies of ethnobotany and recorded thevernacular names and uses of plants, espe-cially those used in Chinese folk medicines.Indeed, his interest in botany was aroused bythe difficulties of reconciling European sci-entific names and the many vernacularnames for Chinese medicinal plants.On June 20, 1891, during home leave,

Henry married Caroline Orridge, the daugh-ter of a London jeweler, and returned toChina later that year. In November 1896,while stationed in southern China at Mengsi("Mengtze" or "Mengtse" in Henry’s letters),he wrote to Evelyn Gleeson, a friend fromhis student days in Galway, saying that hehad received "very enthusiastic letters froma Liverpool merchant," Arthur K. Bulley.Henry promised to send him seeds butcommented to Evelyn Gleeson that

the difficulty is in selecting. I like plants withbeautiful foliage and neat little flowers. I don’tcare for colour much. I thmk chrysanthemumsare positively ugly on account of their wretchedleaves. The Rose is an exception: it is wonder-fully beautiful in every way. As for Geraniums, Ireally can’t understand any one liking them.Ferns of all kinds please me. They are simplymarvellous here, especially the kinds that onegets in the virgin forests. Their vanety of form isastonishing.

Despite his reservations and his own plea-sure in form, not color, Henry did collectseeds and also some epiphytic orchids. InJanuary 1897 he wrote to Evelyn Gleesonsaying that he had sent seeds to Bulley "but

there was nothing in them suitable for youto plant. I must get you something soon." Afew weeks later, as promised, AugustineHenry sent a "box containing 3 kinds of or-chids (I haven’t seen the flowers) procuredon ... trees at 7000 [feet]. If they arrive via-ble and plantable, please take half of eachkind and send the other half" to Bulley.Henry said that the orchids should grow inEngland, advising Miss Gleeson not to"throw them away: but try them, as theyhave astonishing vitality. Consult some onewho knows: and give me suggestions if nec-essary re collecting & sending similar or-chids." "

Henry sent additional batches of seeds toKew. In one letter to Evelyn Gleeson on De-cember 21, 1898, he wrote that he had sentWilliam Thistleton-Dyer, Hooker’s succes-sor as director of Kew, "a lot of seeds: and he

gave them to the girl gardeners to grow: andthese dears succeeded in raising 45 kinds (al-ready) including 6 species of Begonia & someother beautiful plants as a new species ofRogersia, ... also Rhododendrons (3 or 4)."These seedlings had perhaps a better chanceof surviving than the orchids sent to MissGleeson, yet the number of plants said tohave been introduced by Henry is generallyconsidered to be small.While his introductions may be few, Au-

gustine Henry’s discovery of new speciesand his botanical work in poorly knownareas was significant. W. Botting Hemsleyestimated that while in China - at Yichang,on Hainan, in Taiwan, at Mengsi, and Simao- Henry and his native helpers acquiredover 15,800 collection numbers. As therewere an average of 10 specimens in eachthere must have been a total of almost

160,000 herbarium specimens. Henry col-lected probably over 5000 species between

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1884 and 1900. His contribution to Chinese

botany may be measured crudely by notingthe many species with the epithets augus-tinii orhenryi: Henrya augustinii,Rhododendron augustinii, Emmenopteryshenryi, andLonicerahenryi. Carolinellahenryi was named for his wife, Caroline.

Henry’s botanical contacts in China

One of Augustine Henry’s first contacts inChina was Lord Kesteven (1851-1915), whovisited Yichang in April 1886 and probablyaccompanied Henry on a trip upstreamthrough the famous Yangtze gorge near thecity. Kesteven went with Henry many yearslater on excursions to forests in France and

sponsored his journey to the western UnitedStates in the early 1900s. He was one of theselect group who received seeds from Augus-tine Henry during his first tour of duty, andit was through him that Henry introducedthe sweetspire (Itea ilici folia into cultiva-tion in the British Isles.No doubt Henry’s enthusiasm was stimu-

lated by the letters he received from Kewtelling him of the significance of his discov-eries and enclosing numerous articles andpapers containing descriptions of his plants.Unfortunately, none of these letters, writtenby William Thistleton-Dyer, Daniel Oliver,and William Hemsley, is extant, so it is notpossible to judge accurately how muchHenry was inspired by them. During hishome leave in 1890, Henry certainly musthave been encouraged by his visit to Kew,where he was greeted as a celebrity, the manwho had in 1886 sent "one of the most im-

portant plant collections ever received fromthe centre of China" and who continued toastound botanists with every new parcel of

plant specimens. He soon tried to pass on hisenthusiasm to others.

During his early years in China, Henrywas learning and being guided. He returnedto China in 1892 more confident and pre-pared to encourage others. In 1893 he pub-lished Notes on the Economic Botany ofChina, in the preface of which he wrote:Missionaries and others living in the interior areoften m a position to make enquiries concerningthe natural productions of China, the results ofwhich would be of great service to science. I in-tend to publish a few notes, pomting out the di-rections in which such work might be done as re-gards articles derived from the vegetable kmg-dom ; for I thmk a vague idea that everything is sknown, prevents many people from taking aninterest in natural history. Scarcely anything isknown m regard to many points of economicalinterest. If any one wishes to help, he will confera great favour on the writer by sending himspecimens of dried plants, drugs, woods, dyes, etc.These specimens will be forwarded when neces-sary, to England, to have them dealt with by theauthorities at Kew.

Henry continued with instructions on the

preparation of herbarium specimens, whichwere almost word for word what HenryHance had told him nearly nine years earlierin the only letters he kept.Henry did not confine his interests to eco-

nomic botany, however, nor did he attemptto restrict the people he helped and encour-aged. In October 1892 he was assigned toDakou on the island of Taiwan (Formosa); hehad applied for the transfer in the hope thatthe climate would suit his wife, who was infailing health with tuberculosis. CarolineOrridge Henry died two years later in Den-

The Henry lily (Lilium henry/. J .Drawing by Cynthia DeSando.

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ver, Colorado, where she had gone becauseof the illness.On Taiwan Henry gathered information

for a flora of the island. In May 1893 he con-tacted Hosea Ballou Morse (1855-1934), agraduate of Harvard University and a com-missioner in the customs service who wasstationed at Tamsui. He reminded Morsethat he had sent specimens of wild hemp-skin cloth and the plant from which it wasmanufactured to Shanghai the previous year;the plant had been identified as an Alpiniaspecies. On May 15, 1893, Henry wrote that

from letters received from Kew, asking for speci-mens in flower, it appears that it is a new species... I should be much obhged if you would kindlycut off the flowers, put it m a bottle m spirits ofwine, and send to me.... I am domg my best hereto get at the products of the vegetable kingdomand have a native ... collecting for me in themountams.

In fact he had several people working forhim; under the guidance of Mr. Schmuser, alighthouse keeper, "the savage chief Capt-ing" made a large collection in the south ofthe island. On June 6, 1893, AugustineHenry replied to a letter from Hosea Morsein which Morse had mentioned the prob-lems of customs officials with plants and

plant products listed under Chmese names.Henry said that he could not tackle that for

the present:

One must remember that the framers of the tariffwere ignorant of botany, textile fibres and suchlike ... such work as identifying drugs, fibres,dyes &c, can only be done very gradually and byaccumulation of specimens of the plants and in-formation got at first hand. It also requires an ex-pert, one who knows Chinese and has an acquam-tance with common vulgar names in Chinese,with Chinese books &c, else the ordinary ob-server will be taken in.

A few days later Henry provided Morsewith instructions about drying plants, not-ing that he generally obtained six specimensof each species. Later Henry advised him on

employing native collectors. In AugustMorse promised to collect for Henry. Henryagreed to pay a native collector $ 8 a monthand instructed that he should bring plantsinto Tamsui twice a month if possible.Morse’s assistance was acknowledged byAugustine Henry in his published list ofTaiwanese plants. The two men continuedto correspond for many years, especiallywhile Henry was in Mengsi.Henry arrived in Mengsi late in June 1896

and there met Pierre Bons D’Anty (1859-1916), who was the French consul in Simao(Ssemao or Szemao in Henry’s correspon-dence), a city in southwestern China nearthe border with Vietnam (then French In-dochina). Bons D’Anty was probably inMengsi on business. They could not havehad much contact, for the consul left Mengsifive days after their first meeting. These twomen had much in common; they shared aninterest in Chinese literature, and Henry re-garded Pierre Bons D’Anty as "very clever." "

Their brief contact was enough for Henry topersuade him to collect plants at Simao.Between August 1896 and November

1897, when Bons D’Anty left Simao, he cor-

responded with Henry and sent specimens.On August 22, 1896, Bons D’Anty sent toHenry specimens of plants "found commonor peculiar" between Mengsi and Simao;each specimen was numbered, and BonsD’Anty asked Henry to refer to the "samenumber when telling me the identificationthat you arrive at." It is evident from thisthat Henry had become more than a collec-tor ; he was now a botanist capable of namingplants. Yet there were some species he could

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not identify, and these were sent to London.Over the following year Henry and BonsD’Anty corresponded about conifers, tea,and Chinese vernacular names.

In June 1897 Pierre Bons D’Anty wrotethat

for nearly two months I have not been out of myoffice and I was busy till the middle of everymght. I hope you will excuse me. I thought ofwriting to you but I couldn’t find a minute to doso.... I have some 250 or 300 specimens, some

very cunous, collected during my trip in the Lip-sing [?]. I am going to pack them all right and sendthem to you as soon as possible.

He sent Henry a photograph of a palm thatwas very common in the Lipsing area; "it isseen around every pagoda and the leaves areused to make paper with, or rather they areused as paper, being cut into long stripes[sic]." ,,

As he could not make herbarium speci-mens of the huge leaves, Bons D’Antythought the best way to convey the informa-tion was by photographing the plant. He re-marked that the Chinese called the palmMien i chou. In a subsequent letter BonsD’Anty showed that he had some botanicalexpertise himself, by saying that the palmwas not a species of Chamaerops, Livistona,Arenga, or Borassus. Henry sent the photo-graph to Kew and the palm was identified as"probably Trachycarpus sp." In all, PierreBons D’Anty sent Henry about 500 speci-mens before he left Simao. These were in-

corporated into Henry’s collections and sentto Kew. They gave Henry a good preliminaryknowledge of the flora of that region, wherehe was to be sent in 1898.While corresponding with Bons D’Anty in

Simao, Henry remained in contact withHosea Morse, who had been transferred to

Longzhou in Guangxi province. On April 30,1897, Henry informed William Thistleton-

Dyer that he had

received from Morse ... some 400 species. Someare quite interesting. He sent me Tournefortia

sarmentosa, which is hitherto known only as anoceamc plant.... He also sends me Dolichan-drone cauda-fehna, which I found on the RedRiver. Its pods are the most comic of fruits; longtall of some prehistoric ammal would be near it.

Earlier in the year he had written to HoseaMorse saying that Professor Charles Sargentof the Arnold Arboretum had written askingfor seeds of "mountain shrubs and trees.

Perhaps you could co-operate if you get off atall to the mountains." Henry expressed hisgratitude for Morse’s assistance with theTaiwanese flora: "I am very grateful to youfor your collecting for me: and you can sendat your convenience. I expect you will have

quite a lot of novelties. Every place in Chinahas some; and they often are the commonestplants of the locality." "

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Henry and Bulley

It was while in Mengsi that AugustineHenry began his correspondence with theLiverpool merchant Arthur K. Bulley(1861-1942). Bulley, the founder of BeesNursery, was an insatiable horticulturistwith a passion for introducing new plantsinto the British Isles. He had tried contactingmissionaries in China to request seeds, apractice that was becoming common at thattime among institutions and enthusiastic

gardeners in Europe. However, Bulley wasfar from content with the seeds he received;his garden "could quickly claim to possessthe best international collection of dande-lions to be seen anywhere." "

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Bulley first wrote to Henry in 1896 and re-quested seeds, which Henry sent. In a letterto Evelyn Gleeson written in June 1897,Henry said that "I don’t know [Bulley], buthe wrote to me for seeds .... He is an en-

thusiast. I have a weakness for enthusiasts,cranks and the like." A fortnight later, heremarked in another letter to Miss Gleesonthat "Mr. Bulley seemed satisfied with theseeds I sent him and wrote me a letter full of

flattery and appreciation." "

Unlike the missionaries, Henry seemed tobe able to travel anywhere and collectworthwhile plants. On March 30, 1897,Henri Correvon of Geneva sent a letter in

idiosyncratic English to Bulley seeking as-sistance :

"I allways wishes to hear that somebody wouldgo [to Yunnan]. But Franchet says that only theJesuits - those who take the protestant churchbuilt at Madagascar by English missionaries -alone, the awful Jesuits can go there. Is yourfriend Henry the abbe Henry? - if so he willbe able to get something as the people there iscatholic. Franchet says even that they are verymuch against protestants. Our protestant mis-sionaries are not far from Yunnan but Franchet

says they cannot go there they would be killed!!!So that if you have a fnend there ask him forseeds of Primula and Paeomes etc. etc."

Although Henry sent seeds to Bulley fromMengsi, the plants from this part of Yunnanwere subtropical species and were unlikelyto be hardy in England.

In 1901 Bulley and Henry met in Englandfollowing Henry’s resignation from theChinese Customs Service. Bulley was stillkeen’to get Chinese plants. In one undatedletter to Henry he had stated that "there arefew things in the wide world I should enjoymore than sending out a collector. But atpresent [about 1897] it’s impossible. I wont

sell plants and I cant afford the expensewithout selling. Given prosperity I’ll go my-self some day." His nursery business didprosper, but Bulley never visited China. In-stead he employed his own collectors or as-sisted in financing plant-collecting expedi-tions. In 1904 George Forrest ( 1873-1932)went to China for the first time, as Bulley’scollector. He returned in 1910, sponsored byanother English gardener, J. C. Williams(1861-1939), and Arthur Bulley. In 1911,financed by Bulley, Frank Kingdon Ward(1885-1958) made his first plant-collectingtrip; it was not remarkably productive andprobably displeased Bulley. Although Wardmade several other expeditions, Bulley didnot commission them. In 1913 Bulley en-gaged Roland Cooper (1890-1962) to collectin Sikkim, but their contract was soon ter-minated. Like Forrest and Ward, Coopermade other collecting trips in the Far East,but none under Bulley’s sponsorship.

Henry and Ernest Wilson ’

Early in 1898 Augustine Henry was trans-ferred from Mengsi to Simao. The journeytook 18 days by foot and mule. This customspost was the last new one to which Henrywas assigned, and it was at Simao that one ofthe most significant events took place in hiswork of stimulating exploration of theChinese flora. That event was the arrival ofErnest Wilson (1876-1930) in Simao withthese instructions from the Veitch nursery:

The object of the journey is to collect a quantityof seeds of a plant the name of which is known tous. This is the object - do not dissipate time,energy or money on anything else. In furtheranceof this you will first endeavor to visit Dr. Augus-tine Henry and obtain precise data as to the

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habitat of this particular plant and informationon the flora of central China in general.

These cryptic orders were the long-awaited result of Augustine Henry’s effortsto have the seed of the beautiful dove tree

(Davidia involucrata) collected and trans-ported to England for cultivation.Those efforts began in 1888, when Henry

set out with his Chinese coolies and

Antwerp Pratt on a collecting trip that lastedthree months and covered the area south-west of Yichang. On May 17 near the villageof Mahuanggou Henry rode up a river valleyand saw "one of the strangest sights he sawin China ... a solitary tree of Davidia in fullblow ... waving its innumerable ghost hand-kerchiefs." At the time he did not know thetree’s name, so he collected herbarium

specimens. In the following autumn hemanaged to send two of his trusted coolies tothe tree, and they collected fruits, whichhe sent with the herbarium specimens toKew. The fruits and dried specimens reachedLondon in 1889 and were examined byDaniel Oliver. Oliver prepared drawings ofthe fruits, which were the first seen byWestern scientists, but he omitted to haveany seed sown. In April 1891 Oliver pub-lished a description and illustration of thefruits and commented that "Davidia is atree almost deserving a special mission toWestern China with a view to its introduc-tion to European gardens." That remark is sosimilar to comments made years later byHenry that it is hard not to conclude that hehad suggested this to Oliver when he visitedKew during his home leave in 1890.

However, for a few years Davidia was for-

gotten. Then, in April 1897, WilliamThistleton-Dyer wrote to Augustine Henry

at Mengsi asking for seeds. Henry sent thisreply on June 3, 1897:With respect to seeds, I will do what I can, espe-cially later on when I shall have less plant collect-mg to do in our immediate neighbourhood. But itreally is a difficult matter collecting seeds - onearrives on the ground too early or too late. I triede.g. to collect seeds of Gentiana serra andrhodantha common plants and failed to get a asingle seed. You may ask why not employ a na-tive. Ah! you don’t know the Yunnanese - mymuleteer who collects plants is the only man Iknow who could or would do the work - andeven he does only about [one-tenth] of what Icould do if I had his time. The other Chmese and

aborigines are too lazy for seed collecting .... Thefact is that if one has nothing else to do, onemight orgamze plans and people for carrying outsuch work, but it is difficult for me as I have agood deal to do. And yet I doubt if many of myspecimens will be collected agam for 50 years: as Ihave put an amount of energy into parts of the

botanizing. The flowers of a certain Zanthoxyl-lum have cost me 3 visits to one spot and an ex-

penditure of 6 hours time. Money is not what iswanted, but time, oceans of time. Nothing as-tonishes people at home so much as the fact, areal fact, that in countnes like China, you cannotdo everything with money. Patience is more val-uable.

Henry continued by discussing various othersubjects, but before he posted the letter an-other one arrived from Thistleton-Dyer ask-ing specially for seeds of a redbud tree (Cer-cis racemosa). Henry added to his letter:I never saw the tree but in one spot on the

Hupeh-Szechwan frontier. It is useless of me towrite to Ichang as I know no one there now: but Ithink you ought to make a strong effort to get theConsul there to send one of the coolies who ac-

compamed me on my trip to the locality, & pro-cure not only seeds of the Cercis, but also ofDavidia .... Why Davidia is worth any amount ofmoney. I only saw one tree of it, but doubtlessthere are others in the district ... I assure youthat if I could do anything by writmg myself to

the Ichang Consul, I would do it; I know the waysof people m outposts. You will draw them, if youmake the offer exciting. Davidia is wonderful.

On May 21, before receiving this long reply,Thistleton-Dyer wrote to ask for more seeds,"the majority of them being from Ichangplants." On receiving this letter, Henry con-sidered sending the list to Yichang himself,but he decided that there was little hope ofanything resulting. On July 19, 1897, hewrote a long, detailed letter to WilliamThistleton-Dyer in which he set out the fol-lowing ideas:

In regard to seed collecting it is not a question ofmoney, but of finding some one with the time onhand and the requisite intelligence and energy,and this is very difficult to find indeed.

I would suggest, so great is the variety andbeauty of the Chinese flora and so fit are theplants for European climate, that an effort oughtto be made to send out a small expedition - thefunds e.g. being provided by a syndicate of say, ahorticulturist, a private gentleman or two, &c. Iestimate £1000 would cover the expenses for 2

years: and what I would recommend is that a manbe selected, who has just finished his botamcalstudies at Cambridge University. I mean don’tsend a collector but a gentleman, a student, andan enthusiast. Suppose e.g. you could ahght on aman like Willis of Ceylon was, just as he hadfinished his botanical course some years ago. Thelocality I would suggest is the mountain rangeseparating Szechwan from Shensi or thereabouts- the expedition starting from Ichang in Apriland covering two seasons.

In conclusion, I can see now that there werehundreds of interestmg plants which I might havenoticed earlier m my plant collecting, if I had hadthe experience or gemus or the teaching. If youever again come across a budding collector likewhat I was when we began correspondence someyears ago, please insist on him being more than amere collector: and perhaps you will help to de-velop a naturalist.

This letter marks the beginning of a newperiod in Augustine Henry’s life in which herecognized the vast potential of the Chineseflora for European horticulture, yet ac-knowledged his own inadequacy. It is clearthat these letters also provided WilliamThistleton-Dyer with much food forthought, and for several months Henry gotno further correspondence from Kew. Dur-ing this period he was transferred to Simao.In 1898 he received a "very extensive letter"from Thistleton-Dyer and in his reply onJune 8, 1898, Henry remarked that "I hopeyou will try and get a young Cambridge orOxford botanist to come to this part of the

world, do some naturalist [sic] work, andcollect seeds and live plants for cultivation." "

In none of Augustine Henry’s subsequentletters to William Thistleton-Dyer was thematter discussed further.

Thistleton-Dyer proposed an expedition toHarry Veitch of Veitch’s nurseries, the com-

pany that had previously sent CharlesMaries to Yichang with so little success.Veitch asked Thistleton-Dyer to recom-mend someone and in April 1899 ErnestWilson set off for China. He traveled

through the United States, where he visitedthe Arnold Arboretum in Boston and metProfessor Sargent. He reached Hong Kongand then traveled to Hanoi, eventuallyreaching Laokoi. There were civil distur-bances in the Mengsi area just before Wilsonarrived in southern China and he was forcedto remain at Laokoi. Eventually, after a longdelay, he departed for Simao. Henry knewthat Wilson was on his way; on September19, 1899, he wrote to Thistleton-Dyer sayingthat "Mr. Wilson after a long delay at Laokoiowing to the disturbance at Mengtse &c. ison his way here and has reached Talang: and

will arrive in Ssemao on Sunday next. I willgive him all the help possible."

Ernest Wilson reached Simao as antici-

pated and for several weeks stayed withHenry. On October 9, in a letter to EvelynGleeson, Augustine Henry remarked thatI have ... a guest of all the things in the world atSzemao, a Mr. Wilson, late a gardener at Kew,who has been sent out by Veitch’s to collectplants or rather their seeds and bulbs in China.He has made his way here to consult with me onbest way of procedure and concerning the in-teresting country around Ichang and he will stayhere 2 or 3 weeks. He is a self-made man, knows

botany thoroughly, is young and will get on.

On the same day Henry wrote to Kew, not-ing that Wilson had reached Simao safely.He offered the opinion that Wilson would"do, I think, as he seems very energetic, fondof his botany .... He is also even-temperedand level-headed, the main thing for travel-ing and working in China." Henry gave Wil-son "on a half-page of a notebook ... asketch of a tract of country about the size of

New York State" on which he marked the

place where he had found the single tree ofDavidia involucrata in 1888. He also pro-vided Wilson with useful information and

hints. In October Henry was instructed toreturn to Mengsi to resume charge of thecustoms station there, so he and Wilsonjourneyed from Simao. At Mengsi theyparted, but they remained close friends forthe rest of their lives. Henry was pleased andrelieved. To Evelyn Gleeson he confided thathe "would be glad if [Wilson] will continueto carry on the work in China which has

been on my shoulders for some years. There

is so much of interest and of novelty."Ernest Wilson traveled to Yichang and

then to the hamlet of Mahuanggou, where

he found that Henry’s lone dove tree hadbeen cut down. However, as Henry had pre-dicted, Wilson found other trees in the areaand collected seeds for his employers. Theseeventually reached England, germinated,and produced many of the Davidia treesseen in the British Isles today. Wilson’s suc-cess must have given Augustine Henry plea-sure, for although he had sent the first fruitsto Europe, none of the seeds had been sown,and the glory of raising the first seedlingpassed to Maurice de Vilmorin in Paris.

Henry and Charles Sargent

In 1892 Charles Sargent was visiting Ja-pan, where he met James Herbert Veitch

(1868-1907), nephew of Harry Veitch. Onhis return to Boston, Sargent suggested toHarry Veitch that his nephew go to China tocollect seeds for the Arnold Arboretum andthe family nursery. James’s uncle declined tosend him and Sargent abandoned the idea ofa Chinese collecting expedition until hebegan to correspond with Augustine Henry.

Henry’s first letter to Charles Sargent isdated May 31, 1894. Like Kew, the ArnoldArboretum wanted seeds, and Sargent hadasked Henry to collect. Augustine Henry ex-plained his position to Sargent in much thesame way as he had earlier explained it toThistleton-Dyer. But, like Thistleton-Dyer,Sargent was persistent, and Henry had toreiterate in a letter written in September1897 that he found "seed collecting almostout of the question, as my time is so limitedwhich I can spend in the forests."

Shortly after arriving in Simao, Henry re-marked casually in an undated letter to Sar-gent that "Yunnan is a splendid ground forthe anthropologist, ethnologist, zoologist,

34 ,

geologist: and I should very much like to seea trained expedition set out to explore - wewho are on the spot are too busy with ourordinary duties to go in seriously for anysuch studies." By autumn 1898 Sargent wasalso pestering Henry to send seeds fromYichang, and Henry’s response on Novem-ber 20 was the same as that to

Thistleton-Dyer:There are American missionaries m Ichang andmany other parts of China and you could getlists of them from the mission boards and appealto them. A circular letter might attract one or twoout of the hundreds. Perhaps you don’t like theidea of begging in this way: but Mr Bulley ofLiverpool (whom you know, I think) has beensomewhat successful m this direction.

As Veitch and Wilson were negotiatingabout the quest for Davidia, Sargent wroteto Henry proposing an expedition to Chinawith Henry as a member. He received theproposal early in May 1899 and replied that"as the matter requires a considerableamount of thinking about, I intend to writeto you fully by our next courier." As hepromised, Henry replied in detail on May 9,again exactly as he had to Thistleton-Dyer."As I consider enthusiasm in botany thechief quality needed in the man selected, Ireply to your question ’is there anyone Icould recommend in China’ in the negative.The man can be found in the U. S. or in En-

gland. Indeed it might be better to send 2men." Clearly Sargent wanted Henry to behis envoy, for on the following day Henrywrote a confidential note to Sargent sayingthat he could not see any way of obtainingleave from the customs service to go on an

expedition, and that, in any case, the trou-bled situation within China made such a re-

quest from him to his superiors inopportune.

In the final paragraph Henry wrote:It must not be forgotten that I am doing fairlygood botanical work as I am situated, as my ownprivate hobby. I have pondered over the matter agood deal: and much as I should like to go on suchan expedition, I must consider that I do not seeany way to accomplish such a wish. I am unavail-able. My home leave is due at the end of 1900:and I am lookmg forward to spending 1901 and1902 in Europe. I feel that by that time, i.e. end of1900, I must have a change of climate and sur-roundmgs for the benefit of my health, both phys-ical and mental. It may seem absurd: but it is verydifficult to bear up with the isolation, fnendless-ness and monotony of a place such as this.

In another letter dated July 21, Henry re-peated his remarks and told Sargent that hewould require a considerable salary for suchan expedition and thus his "terms would beprohibitive ... I could scarcely be expectedto resign from my position in the customs,unless I saw an opening equally good. I amless loath to refuse, because I know that re-maining in the Customs I still do good ser-vice to botany."However, even that did not diminish Sar-

gent’s hope of enlisting him, and their dis-cussions continued. It lasted many more

months, probably due to delays in the mailservice, and was still continuing when Wil-son arrived in Simao. On November 14,1899, after Wilson had left and Henry had re-turned to Mengsi, Henry wrote to Sargent: "Ithank you very much for the confidence yourepose in me, and for the liberality of youroffer, and feel flattered by the high esteemyou have in my capacities. But I think it isbest to decline definitely."His long letter continued with remarks

about sending out a young collector. Sargentthought the person should speak Chinese,but Henry said that this was not necessary,

35

remarking that he was "sure Mr. Wilson willdo excellent work, in the way of collectingseeds, bulbs, etc.... he is really at little dis-advantage on account of his ignorance ofChinese." Henry said that no interpreter wasneeded, that "an ordinary ’boy’ will do." Inconcluding his letter Henry provided Sargentwith advice on choosing a collector, againcommenting on Ernest Wilson’s suitability.What is wanted is a man with common-sense,tact and especially good temper - of course Ipre-suppose he is enthusiastic in botany and eagerto travel. You ought not to have the slightestdifficulty in findmg such a man. Of course, as inMr. Wilson’s case it would be a good thing if hecould come and see me and learn a great manywrinkles in that way. If Mr. Wilson were not em-

ployed by Veitch’s for seed collecting, I think hewould do very well - as he gets on well with theChinese and is very keen to do as much collectingas is possible. I trust you will succeed in findingsuch a man. In conclusion, I must again expressto you my best thanks for the kindness and liber-

ality of your offer: so much esteemed by me, ascoming from you one of the most disting~.ushed ofliving botanists.

This finally compelled Sargent to stop hispursuit of Augustine Henry, but it was notthe last offer Henry was to decline. One yearlater Henry left China for the last time - hehad lost "the zest of youth" and was "tiredof China, mentally dead tired of it." How-ever, he was to retain great interest in its

plants for the rest of his life, and he con-tinued to encourage others to explore thevast country.

Henry and David Fairchild

Before Augustine Henry left China, he re-ceived a letter from David Fairchild ( 1869-1954), a botanist in the U.S. Department ofAgriculture, who was in charge of the office

of Foreign Seed and Plant Introductions.Fairchild visited southern China in March

1900, and according to his own accountwrote to Henry for advice on collecting. Au-gustine Henry sent Fairchild his book oneconomic plants. Fairchild thought the bookwas "splendid." At the end of his letter,Henry answered Fairchild’s query as to howhe could procure seeds and plants from theinterior of China, by giving the followingadvice: "Don’t waste money on postage-send a man." David Fairchild acknowledgedthat "this word of wisdom made a deep im-pression on me and had a great influence onmy policy when I returned to the UnitedStates. Largely because of this advice I inau-gurated an exploration of that vast country."

In 1903 David Fairchild visited Londonand called on Augustine Henry, who wasworking on his Chinese collections at Kew.He proposed that Henry should return toChina for the U.S. Department of Agricul-ture, but Henry declined. However, the twomen discussed the economic potential ofChinese plants and Fairchild departed moredetermined than ever to send explorers toChina. In May 1905, under Fairchild’s direc-tion, Frank Meyer ( 1875-1915) went therefor the first time. Although he concentratedon plants of economic value, he did intro-duce some ornamental species into NorthAmerican gardens. Later, David Fairchildsent Joseph Rock (1884-1962), who made hisname by introducing rhododendrons andconifers.

Henry began to talk about the great hor-ticultural potential of Chinese plants soonafter he returned to Europe. At a dinner ofthe Horticultural Club on March 8, 1902, inLondon he was the guest of honor. Sir Wil-liam Thistleton-Dyer proposed Dr. Henry’s

36 f

health in "a capital speech which evokedconsiderable amusement by its quaint com-bination of dry official reserve and genial ap-preciation of Dr. Henry’s labours." Accord-ing to the Gardeners’ Chronicle, AugustineHenry’s speech was outstanding. He pointedout that vast areas of China remained to be

explored and yet stated that he had been thewrong person to undertake the task. He re-marked that his education had not preparedhim for botanical work, "an extensiveknowledge of ancient Greece ... being of noaid to him whatever." He hoped that an ex-pedition under the auspices of the RoyalHorticultural Society could be fitted out forChina, where it would find not only plantsof great ornamental value but also "manysorts of vegetables unknown to use, manyfruits, ... also unintroduced, and evenforage-grasses," which he considered worthyof introduction. He noted that the climate ofmuch of China was such that its native

plants should be hardy in the British Islesand he cited "numerous species there exist-ing, Ribes, Rhododendrons, &c., whichwould excel anything yet introduced."

Wilson, Sargent, and Henry

Ernest Wilson returned to England inApril 1902 with his collection of seeds andbulbs. So successful was his expedition thatin January 1903, Harry Veitch again senthim to China. From this expedition Wilsonreturned in March 1906. In mid-AprilCharles Sargent was in England and metWilson, whom he surprised by inviting himto return to China, this time for the ArnoldArboretum. After some negotiations ErnestWilson agreed, and he wrote to Sargent:

So you have captured me at last. Twelve monthsago I would not have believed it possible for any-one to have persuaded me into revisiting Chinaon any terms. Since it has come to pass be it saidthat there is no person or institution I wouldrather serve than yourself and the Arnold Ar-boretum - Kew alone excepted.

Augustine Henry was in the United Stateswhen he learnt of Wilson’s "capture" by Sar-gent. In fact Henry had been looking for asuitable position for Wilson and had found apossibility in Canada. He wrote to Wilson inNovember from Washington: "I have justcome here from Boston ... I shall miss you:am sorry. I agree with Sargent that this ex-pedition is to be a great one. Success to you!"

His letter continued with recommenda-tions on the cameras and photographicplates that Wilson should take to Chinaand also mentioned Schimper’s Plant Geog-raphy, which Henry noted "will put you inway of describing floral regions and doing’Plant Society’ [i.e. ecology] work." He toldWilson that he should take his own chemi-cals for developing plates and do his owndeveloping: "It saves time! and is necessary,else you will be carrying about spoiled anduseless plates." Augustine Henry must havefelt that the mantle of responsibility wasnow finally off his shoulders, and that a newgeneration of collectors and explorers wasbound for China.

In later years Henry was still consultedby these collectors. For example, ReginaldFarrer (1880-1920), an English horticulturistwho sponsored his own expedition to west-ern China in 1913, was working with Wil-liam Purdom (1880-1921) in April 1914 atSining-Fu in Gansu province near the borderwith Xizang (Tibet). From there he wrote toHenry saying that they hoped to return to

37

Beijing by way of the Yangtze valley. Farrerwanted to "see in situ and obtain ... Gen-tiana venosa and Primula nutantiflora." Heasked Henry for full notes on where thesespecies could be found. Henry replied, andFarrer later wrote from "The Valley of Rocksand Wolves, Chinese Tibet" thanking himfor his "most lucid and valuable directions." "

Arthur Bulley also continued to consultHenry; in 1926 he wanted to obtain a speciesof Lithospermum, which had been collectedin Yunnan. However, Henry had never seenor collected the plant and could not help Bul-ley in his quest.

Conclusion

If [Augustine Henry] had done no more thanmake known the marvellous riches of China hewould have achieved more than most men....

Happily so many plants bear his name that whiletrees and shrubs are cultivated his memory willremam m every garden and arboretum for longyears to come.

- J. W. Besant, Gardeners’ Chromcle

Augustine Henry found pleasure inbotany, which he told Charles Sargent washis "private hobby." It helped him to bearthe monotonous daily toil of an officer in theChinese Maritime Customs Service. His

plant-hunting trips allowed him to forget theloneliness of life far from his home andfriends. He confided to Evelyn Gleeson onAugust 29, 1896, that "I positively enjoymyself in the wild luxury of beautiful air, inthe beautiful loneliness of our mountains." "

In China he learned to appreciate the plantsand above all the forests. "A forest is thefinest thing in the world: it is the expressionof nature in the highest form: it is so full ofbeauty and of variety," he said in another

letter to Evelyn Gleeson. On returning toEngland he decided to take up a career inforestry and went to study at the FrenchSchool of Forestry at Nancy. However, hewas soon invited by Henry J. Elwes (1846-1922) to work on a monograph on trees cul-tivated in Ireland and Great Britain. Henryleft Nancy and set to work on the book; thefirst of its seven volumes appeared on No-vember 14, 1906. Early in 1907 AugustineHenry was approached to become reader inforestry at the University of Cambridge. Heaccepted and remained there until January1913, when he became the first professor offorestry in the Royal College of Science inDublin. Henry did much to influence the fu-ture course of forestry in Ireland and alsocarried out taxonomic research. On St. Pat-

rick’s Day 1908 Henry married Alice Brun-

ton, daughter of Sir Richard Brunton, a lead-ing English physician. Henry died in Dublinon March 23, 1930.The Western world is indebted to Augus-

tine Henry for the many fine plants hebrought to the notice of botanists and hor-ticulturists here. While Arthur Grove wascorrect in saying that many of Henry’s dis-coveries would remain as herbarium speci-mens, it is also true that Henry encouragedothers to go to China to collect the seeds andbulbs that he was unable to obtain. It is aremarkable fact that most of the collectors

working in China at the beginning of thiscentury were sent by persons who had corre-sponded with or met Henry. Ernest Wilsonnever forgot the help he received from Au-gustine Henry and paid many tributes to the"scholarly Irishman" who guided him. OfAugustine Henry’s own introduction, theeponymous Lilium henryi, Wilson wrote: "Itis particularly fitting that such a notable ad-dition to our gardens should bear the hon-

38

oured name of a pioneer who has done somuch to acquaint a sceptical world of therich floral wealth of interior China." Fromthe Chinese flora’s treasure chest, he dis-played the jewels and allowed others, withhis help and encouragement, to bring thegems to us. Without Augustine Henry wewould be the poorer.

E. Charles Nelson is taxonomist at the National

Botanic Gardens, Dublm, Ireland

This paper was read at a meeting held in UniversityCollege, Dublm, in November 1980, marking the 50thanmversary of Augustme Henry’s death; the meetmgwas held under the auspices of the Insh section of the eSociety for the Bibhography of Natural History, the So-ciety of Insh Foresters, and the Forestry Graduates

. Group.

AcknowledgementsMy thanks are due to the libranans and archivists of

the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; the Arnold Arbore-tum, Boston, Massachusetts; the National Library ofIreland, Dublin; and the Hunt Institute for BotamcalDocumentation, Pittsburgh, for their assistance withthis article and especially for making available copies ofAugustine Henry’s letters.

References

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Bretschneider, E. 1898. History of European BotamcalDiscovenes in China 2 vols. Sampson Low,London.

Coats, A. 1969. The Quest for Plants, a History of theHorticultural Explorers Studio Vista, London.

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