Anita Silvey - The Plant Hunters: True Stories of Their Daring Adventures to the Far Corners of the Earth

THE
PLANT HUNTERS

True Stories of Their Daring Adventures to the Far Corners of the Earth

Anita Silvey

F ARRAR S TRAUS G IROUX / N EW Y ORK

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F OR MY SISTER L ISA S ILVEY

who takes delight in the natural world

Colored lithograph of an orchid created by Belgian artist Jean Jules Linden in the late 1800s. In the collection of the author.

O NE GOT EATEN by tigers in the Philippines; one died of fever in Ecuador; one drowned in the Orinoco River; one fell to his death in Sierra Leone. Another survived rheumatism, pleurisy, and dysentery while sailing the Yangtze River in China, only to be murdered later. A few ended their days in lunatic asylums; many simply vanished into thin air.

Those who survived endured all kinds of challenges. Vampire bats sucked on their toes; bears attacked them in the woods. These intrepid adventurers faced slime pits, snowdrifts, river rapids, floods, and avalanches. They fell into fitful sleep at night in jungles, listening to the deafening chattering and screeching of wild animals. The sun burned them by day; the cold seeped into their bones at night. They were racked by fever.

Who were these adventurers? They were not soldiers or pirates; they followed a profession with zeal, but were not missionaries, doctors, or spies. They had a different purpose, a very dangerous mission. They risked their lives to find something seemingly ordinary: plants.

The occupation of plant hunting has existed for at least thirty-five centuries, ever since Queen Hatshepsut of ancient Egypt dispatched a convoy of men on ships to bring back frankincense trees from the African land of Punt. Throughout history, plant hunting has been part of the motivation behind important events. Because of President Thomas Jeffersons interest in botany, he dispatched Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to travel across America to catalog and study all the species of plants they could locate; they found dozens of exciting new itemsbear grass, false buckthorn, green rabbitbrush, Jacobs ladder, Lewiss monkey flower, and western red cedar. While on an expedition with Captain James Cook in 1770, Sir Joseph Banks discovered many new species in Australia and New Zealand. And the sailors on the HMS Bounty, who in 1789 organized a mutiny against their captain, William Bligh, were particularly annoyed at having to leave Tahiti in order to get exotic breadfruit plants safely to England. These outraged seamen dropped the plants over the side as part of their rebellion.

The first recorded plant-hunting expedition: a ship heading to Punt and tree saplings being loaded for Queen Hatshepsut. Line drawings from Amelia Edwardss Pharaohs, Fellahs, and Explorers (Harper 1892).

For centuries, plant hunters traveled to the far corners of the earth, gathering specimens for scientists, botanical gardens, and government agencies. As was said of one of them: The mere suspicion of a plant unknown to him was an irresistible attraction. He thought nothing of scaling almost inaccessible mountains and both risked his life and ruined his health by his excursions.

Sir Joseph Banks of Englandwho not only searched for plants around the world himself but sent many other botanical travelers into the fieldwarned potential researchers that plant hunting would expose them to extremes of heat or cold, hunger and thirst, tropical fevers and contact with revolting diseases and creatures, shipwreck and sudden death.

Some plant hunterssuch as Baron Alexander von Humboldt and Sir Joseph Dalton Hookercame from the wealthy, privileged class. But many who took up the professionFrank Meyer, Joseph Rock, and Yns Mexagathered plants to make a living, often being paid just a few cents for each specimen. The hunters found valuable medicinal plants, such as the cinchona tree, which produced quinine for treating malaria. They transported plant species such as rubber trees from one geographic area to another, where they became important commercial crops. With superhuman efforts, collectors gathered species from all over the earth and brought them back to their own countries. These heroic men and women, often seized by what they called botanomania, livedand even diedbecause of their passion for plants.

I walked along the beach to observe a group of crocodiles asleep in the sun, their tails, covered with broad scaly plates, resting on each other. Small herons, as white as snow, walked on their backs, even on their heads, as if they were tree trunks As I looked in that direction I saw [a tiger] lying down under the thick foliage eighty steps away from me. Never had a tiger seemed so enormous I carried on walking, without breaking into a run or moving my arms The further away I got the more I quickened my pace. I was so tempted to turn round and see if the cat was chasing me! Luckily I resisted the impulse, and the tiger remained lying down.

Alexander von Humboldt

I N THESE WORDS, Baron Alexander von Humboldt recorded one of many near-death experiences he had while exploring uncharted regions of Venezuela and Brazil in 1800. For several months, Humboldt, who came from a wealthy German family, and his traveling companion, Pierre Bonpland from France, had been thrilled by the sights, smells, noises, animals, and plants of the area. As they traveled, they sketched, took extensive notes, and gathered specimens. Well supplied with equipment, they brought with them forty-two advanced scientific instruments: microscopes and telescopes, thermometers and barometers, a rain gauge, quadrants and sextants, a Leyden jar for storing static electricity, a magnetic needle, a galvanometer to measure electric currents, and a pendulum. They even carried an instrument that compared degrees of blueness in the colors of the sky.