Ernest Henry Wilson
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Ernest Henry 'Chinese'[1] Wilson (February 15, 1876 – October 15, 1930), better known as E. H. Wilson, was a notable plant collector who introduced a large variety of Asian plant species to the west.
Wilson was born in Chipping Campden, England, first employed at a local nursery as apprentice gardener, and subsequently at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens where he also studied at Birmingham Technical School in the evenings, receiving the Queen's Prize for botany. In 1897 he began work at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, where he won the Hooker Prize for an essay on conifers. He then accepted a position as Chinese plant collector with the firm of James Veitch & Sons.
Wilson travelled west towards China, stopping for five days at the Arnold Arboretum in Boston, Massachusetts, where he met Charles Sprague Sargent and studied techniques for shipping seeds and plants without damage. He continued across North America by train, and sailed from San Francisco, reaching Hong Kong on June 3, 1899. He collected for two years in Hupeh Province, returning to England in April 1902.
In1903 Wilson discovered the Regal lily in west Szechuan China along the Min River. He collected and succussfully introduced about 300 bulbs back to England from that first encounter. He revisited the site in 1908 and collected more bulbs but most of these rotted while en route back to the Arnold Arboretum in Boston. In 1910 he again returned to the Min valley, but this time his leg was crushed during an avalanche of boulders as he was carried along the trail in his sedan chair. After setting his leg with the tripod of his camera, he was carried back to civilization on a 3 day forced march. Thereafter he walked with what he called his "lily limp". It was this third shipment of bulbs that successfully introduced the Regal Lily into cultivation in the United States.
In his first collecting expedition, Wilson gathered 35 cases of bulbs, corms, rhizomes, and tubers, as well as dried herbarium specimens, representing some 906 plant species along with the seed of over 300 plant species. A few of the many plants introduced to western cultivation from his first expedition include Acer griseum, Actinidia deliciosa (kiwi fruit), Berberis julianae, Clematis armandii, Clematis montana var. rubens, Davidia involucrata, Ilex pernyi, Jasminum mesnyi, and Primula pulverulenta. Many of the species he collected were formally named by Maxwell T. Masters.
In subsequent years he became a collector for Arnold Arboretum, and made expeditions to China in 1907, 1908, and 1910, as well as to Japan (1911-1915) where he collected 63 named forms cherry trees. He returned to Asia 1917-1918, exploring in Korea and Formosa. Upon return to the Arnold Arboretum in 1919 he was appointed Associate Director. Three years later he set off for a 2-year expedition through Australia, New Zealand, India, Central and South America, and East Africa. In 1927 he became Keeper of the Arnold Arboretum.
In recognition of his service to horticulture he received many awards such as the Victoria Medal of Honor of the Royal Horticultural Society of London in 1912, the Veitch Memorial Medal, and the George Robert White Memorial Medal of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. He was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and received an honorary M.A. degree from Harvard University and the D. Sc. degree from Trinity College (Connecticut). Over 100 plants introduced by Wilson received the First-Class Certificate or Awards of Merit of the Royal Horticultural Society of London. Sixty species and varieties of Chinese plants bear his name. In 1916-1917 Charles Sprague Sargent edited a partial list of his introductions as Plantae Wilsonianae.
Wilson died in Worcester, Massachusetts, on October 15, 1930 in an automobile accident.
The Ernest Wilson Memorial Garden is in the village of Chipping Campden
[edit] References
[edit] External links
[edit] Selected works
- 1917 Plantae Wilsonianae; an enumeration of the woody plants collected in western China for the Arnold arboretum of Harvard university during the years 1907, 1908, and 1910, by E. H. Wilson, ed. by Charles Sprague Sargent
- 1912 Vegetation in western China : a series of 500 photographs with index
- 1913 Naturalist in western China, with vasculum, camera, and gun; being some account of eleven years' travel, exploration, and observation in the more remote parts of the Flowery kindgom
- 1916 Conifers and taxads of Japan
- 1916 History and botanical relationships of the modern rose, compiled by Ernest H. Wilson and Fred A. Wilson
- 1917 Aristocrats of the garden
- 1920 Romance of our trees
- 1921 Monograph of azaleas : Rhododendron subgenus Anthodendron, by Ernest Henry Wilson and Alfred Rehder
- 1925 America's greatest garden; the Arnold Arboretum
- 1925 Lilies of eastern Asia; a monograph
- 1927 Plant hunting
- 1928 More aristocrats of the garden
- 1929 China, mother of gardens
- 1930 Aristocrats of the trees
- 1931 If I were to make a garden
