The Hengduan Mountains are the richest areas in the world for flora and fauna, and are also the main origin areas of the world's alpine rhododendrons. Hengduan Mountain rich flowers, green velvet artemisia, rhododendron, lily, primrose, etc. the unique appearance of the Western horticultural community is poured by the Western horticultural community, in order to be able to invite these delicate flowers to the West, many internationally renowned plant hunters have come here from thousands of miles to study, collect and introduce alpine rhododendrons in the Hengduan Mountains, leaving a strong chapter in the international horticultural community. Wilson is the contact representative who came here to collect and introduce these plants, the world's famous plant hunters, known as the person who opened the garden of western China, China's Wilson. To this day, the native floral plants of the Hengduan Mountains still attract many plant researchers.
Beginning in 1867, the French missionary Abbe Jean Armand David successively brought back from China a remarkable 250 new plant species and 10 newly discovered plant genera, including the precious tree species Called "Living Fossils of Plants", in addition to transporting elk, golden snub-nosed monkeys, green-tailed rainbow pheasants, red pandas and the first discovered giant panda specimens back to the Musée de la Nature in Paris, causing a huge sensation in the Western world. British customs officer Augustine Henry began collecting plants in 1882, and by the time he returned home in 1899, he had collected 158,000 plant species in China, including more than 500 new plants, 25 new plant genera, and a new plant family, the Tea Ling family. Because these two main collection areas were located in the western part of China near the Hengduan Mountains, their discovery soon led Western botanists to realize that in the alpine valleys of the Himalayas and Hengduan Mountains in the western and southwestern parts of the continent, there were a large number of unknown native beautiful flower and tree resources. Charles Sargent, an authoritative botanist at Harvard University, said: "It is clear that no part of the world has as many new plants in urban parks and gardens suitable for temperate climates as there are in western China." ”
Wilson in China
Wilson with his Chinese expedition
dove tree
In 1899, the British Vicher Flower Company sent a young horticulturist, Enest Wilson (1876-1930), to China to collect and introduce rare flowers and trees. As a result of his successful collection in the area, Wilson was known as the "Man Who Opened the Garden of the West", becoming one of the most successful plant hunters in the world. Wilson spoke highly of Chinese plants: "Without imports from China earlier, our gardens and associated floral resources would be pitiful."
Wilson's life trajectory was on the track of a plant's life from the very beginning. Wilson was born in Gloucestershire, southern England, in February 1876 and after graduating from high school, he joined a nursery company in Warwickshire in central England as an apprentice. In 1892, at the age of 16, Wilson entered the Birmingham Botanical Gardens as a young gardener. In addition to his heavy work, he insisted on studying botany at the technical school in Birmingham, where he was awarded the Queen's Award for his excellent grades. In 1897, Wilson came to The Hill Garden (Royal Botanic Gardens) and was soon recognized for his outstanding talents. Wilson was not satisfied with this, and a year later he went to the Royal Academy of Sciences in South Compsington for further studies, intending to become a teacher of botany. At this time, the famous seedling company Vic Company was looking for plant hunters to collect and introduce plants to China, and Wilson's excellent work ability became the first choice. Riddle praised him: "Wilson was born to be the material of plant hunters, and his strong muscles, undepressed willpower, and love for plants not only made his collection and introduction surpass those of other collectors, but also his research on the domestication and cultivation of plants was also extremely successful." ”
From 1899 to 1911, over a period of 12 years, Wilson came to China four times and entered the Hengduan Mountains three times to investigate. Its footprints cover Sichuan, Yunnan, Chongqing, Hubei and other places, especially in Sichuan, the widest collection range and the longest duration. In Wilson's four Chinese plant collections, a total of 4,700 plant species and more than 65,000 plant specimens were collected, and 1,593 plant seeds and 168 plant slices were brought to the West.
Wilson's first two trips were employed by the Vicky Company. The first was from April 1899 to 1902, in order to find and introduce the tung tree. Also known as the handkerchief tree or pigeon tree, it was first discovered and planted by the French missionary Tan Weidao in Baoxing, Sichuan. The beauty of the tung flowers has aroused great interest and admiration from Westerners, and the Vicky Company is determined to get the tung flowers. In order to obtain the tung, The Vech Company contracted Wilson to provide him with a fee of £500 and an annual salary of £100 during the three or four years of his trip to China. This annual salary was equivalent to the income of a middle-class family for more than 3 years at that time. So Wilson set off for China, and after some arduous searching, he finally found a flower-filled tree near Yichang, Hubei Province. Wilson wrote in literary terms: "In my mind, the tung tree is the most interesting and beautiful tree in the northern temperate flora... The flowers go from green to pure white to brown, and when the breeze blows, they are like large butterflies flying among the trees. During this expedition, Wilson also discovered Chinese kiwifruit in southwestern Yichang and introduced it to the West, which is now an important export fruit for New Zealand.
Artemisia verstia
Primroses
Wilson's second Chinese collection was between 1903 and 1905, with the main goal of finding Artemisia verstia for the Vicky Company. Artemisia verrica is a wild flower discovered by the British explorer Pratt in Kangding, Sichuan, at the end of the 19th century. Artemisia green velvet belongs to the poppy family, also known as the yellow poppy, is an unforgettable and beautiful flower, known as "gorgeous beauty" in the plant world. Pratt's depiction of Artemisia versticos makes Westerners who love flowers feel an unbearable temptation, and everyone wants to obtain this beautiful and magical flower. Because of this, Wilson had a second trip to China, and it was this time that Wilson opened the door to western China. In mid-June 1903, Wilson arrived in Leshan and established his headquarters in Leshan (then known as Jiading Province). On July 1, he ascended Mount Wawu. Wawu Mountain is like a huge Noah's Ark, standing in the sea of clouds. At the top of the hill is a slightly undulating terrace, and the mountain is covered with a large number of rhododendrons, covering almost the entire mountain, many of which are 30 feet tall and have thick dry paths. Beneath the azaleas, mosses grow unbridled, weaving into a beautiful carpet, and some autumn peonies and primroses grow in the clearing between the rhododendrons. Wilson collected 16 rhododendron species here. In his book A Naturalist in West China, Wilson described the mountain as "the most magical natural park in the world." After collecting 200 species of plants at Wawu Mountain, Wilson set out for the Kangding Mountains in search of the full-fledged artemisia chlorophyll recommended by Pratt. Wilson successively arrived in the deep mountain valleys of northern Sichuan and western Sichuan, such as the arrow furnace and Songpan, and harvested a golden full-edge green velvet artemisia and a red flower green velvet artemisia. To this end, when Wilson returned triumphantly, he found a teaching assistant at the Institute of Botany at the British Empire Institute, as well as a gold badge with 41 diamonds given by sir Harry, the owner of the Vicky Company.
Wawu Mountain, Sichuan
Sichuan Wawu Mountain Cuckoo
Due to Wilson's great success, it attracted the attention of Sargent, director of the Arnold Arnold Arboretum at Harvard University in the United States, and also contributed to his third trip to China from 1906 to 1909. This time, he first went to Yichang, then to Sichuan, still building his base in Leshan, conducting a comprehensive search of Sichuan from different directions, and harvesting tens of thousands of dollars in the Minjiang Valley, Wawu Mountain, Emei Mountain and other places. With the deepening of the expedition, he reached the Dadu River and minjiang river basin in western Sichuan, which is the eastern part of the Hengduan Mountain Range, with longitudinal ravines and plants, and is the center of the distribution of plants in the continental lily family, Wilson's most important discovery here is the discovery of the Minjiang lily, so the introduction of lilies has become one of the characteristics of his introduction. The aboveground stem of the Minjiang lily is 1.8 meters high, and the huge white flowers are 12-15 cm long and 12-13 cm in diameter, which can emit a refreshing aroma, and is praised by Wilson as the "king of lilies". Known locally as the "trumpet flower", the Minjiang lily, because it was differentiated and multiplied in the Himalayan orogeny movement, escaped quaternary glacial attacks in the foothills and canyon areas, and has strong vitality. In the article, Wilson praised the Minjiang lily: "Turning this semi-desert area into a real wonderland", Wilson gave this specialty lily in western Sichuan a domineering name "Imperial Lily".
Wilson commanded his entourage to mark the lilies when they bloomed, dig out the lilies according to the marks in the fall when the lilies withered, and then packed them and shipped them to the United States. However, the first time Wilson lacked experience, did not wrap the lily bulbs with dirt, and when they arrived, the lily bulbs were basically rotten, so there was a fourth expedition to pick lilies. On that occasion, Wilson marked about 6,000-9,000 lilies, all harvested in the fall, and shipped to the United States, causing a huge sensation in the Western horticultural world.
In the late 19th century, most European lily varieties native to Europe were at risk of extinction due to the spread of the virus. European and American horticultural experts used Wilson's original Chinese lily, the Minjiang lily, collected in Sichuan to carry out distant crossbreeding with European native lilies. It is the excellent quality and antiviral adaptability of the Minjiang lily that saved the European lily and made the European lily shine again in the world garden.
Imperial Lily
Wilson, who has explored the area several times is also home to Wild Chinese Rhododendrons, wrote in his diary: "Looking down through the entire coniferous forest down to a 5,000-foot-high valley, from June to early July, there is no landscape comparable to the rhododendron forest that blooms freely in the mountains!" Rhododendrons are polygonal plants, and the rhododendrons of various genera grow at specific altitudes, thus forming different bands of color - white, pink, crimson, magnificent and beautiful. "The beautiful and colorful rhododendron deeply attracted Wilson, and eventually Wilson successfully introduced more than 60 species of rhododendrons from China, so that the Western horticultural community and high society could appreciate the charm of the oriental rhododendrons, and the unique appearance of the rhododendrons fascinated the Western world, causing a boom in the cultivation and introduction of rhododendrons in the West."
The treasure of the town mountain of Gaoligong Mountain is the rhododendron of the big tree
Rhododendrons in Exbury Gardens, Hampshire, England
Lantana cuckoo
The last expedition to China was Wilson's thrilling trip. In 1910 he was again employed at the Arnold Arboretum at Harvard University. Wilson set out for China, reassembled his Chinese assistants for his fourth expedition to western China. Wilson's Chinese assistants, through his training, were already proficient in the identification and collection of plants, and wilson was very successful. On the morning of September 3, 1910, Wilson was leading an expedition and collecting a large number of plants to return to Chengdu from Songpan, and on the way to the cramped mountain road, a flying disaster came unexpectedly. Wilson wrote in his diary: "I suddenly found that my dogs stopped wagging their tails, and when they rushed over with their tails between their legs, some small stones hit the road, and then they fell into the river thirty feet below me. I shouted for the sedan to drop the sedan. The two front sedans ran desperately forward, and I tried to keep up, but as soon as I stepped out of the sedan pole, a huge falling rock hit the sedan and smashed it into the river. Suddenly, a stone fell and hit Wilson's right calf, and suddenly the skin opened and the blood flowed continuously, causing a severe fracture and collapsing on the ground unable to move. Even so, Wilson endured severe pain, did not panic, but thought about how to solve the current predicament, especially not to let the results of his investigation be in vain. Because Wilson walked in front of the expedition, after the danger, Wilson lay in the middle of the path, unable to move, and behind him were 40-50 mules carrying the various expedition results collected by the expedition, including the bulb of the Imperial Lily, which was blocked on the dangerous path because of the danger. If this problem is not solved urgently, once the mule team riots because of the fright, the consequences will be unimaginable. In an emergency, Wilson immediately had the wound simply bandaged, and crossed him on the road, with his back to the cliff inside, his body on the road, his calves hanging on the cliff below the road, letting the mules cross his body, successfully eliminating the danger, preserving the results of his investigation, and also protecting the interests of investors. Wilson wrote in his diary: "How many people know the size of a mule's hooves? Many people only know its strong legs and sharp teeth, and its stubborn temperament, but the size of its hooves is another matter. I lay down on the road and then the mule crossed my body. At this point, I knew the size of the mule's hooves. There were about forty to fifty mules that almost habitually crossed my body, but until the last one crossed, I was still able to breathe freely. Because it was still three days away from Chengdu, after the mules had passed, Wilson had to use the tripod of his camera to temporarily make a splint to fix the wound, and the guys carried him back to Chengdu. When he arrived in Chengdu, Wilson's leg wound was severely infected because of the fracture of his calf bone, and he once asked for amputation. Fortunately, the doctors of the Presbyterian Church were superbly skilled, and under their careful treatment, they were exempted from amputation, and after three months of barely walking, he set off to return to the United States for re-treatment, and his leg was re-broken and then taken back. After a series of treatments, Wilson's right leg was an inch shorter than his left leg, and he was able to walk freely. At the time of Wilson's accident, his Chinese aides were still searching for plants, and the precious pine seeds and imperial lilies were safely sent to the United States. Because this time Wilson's main introduction result is the imperial lily, which can be said to be a lily that gave up his life, so people jokingly call this lily also called "lily lame". Despite this unfortunate event, Wilson's goals were achieved.
Wilson's story spread abroad and became major news. A foreign newspaper reported of Wilson's trip to China: "Believe it or not – the strangest traffic jam solution in history." Ernest Wilson, a botanist from Boston, was injured by a landslide on a narrow cliff on a mountain in China, and he ordered his entourage to place his stretcher horizontally on a mountain road only one step wide, allowing a caravan of 40 mules to step over his supine body while his feet hung from the edge of the 5,500-foot cliff. Wilson was left with a permanent disability due to a leg from a rockfall, ending his twelve-year journey to China. Wilson's great discovery was hailed at the time as": "The botanist who came to the end of the earth; the greatest botanist in the world; reached a territory that whites had never set foot in." ”
In April 1919, Wilson was appointed assistant director of the Arnold Arboretum at Harvard University. In April 1927, when the director of the park, Mr. Sargent, died, he was promoted to the head of the park. After returning from China, Wilson used the power of Harvard University research institutions in the United States to travel to almost every corner of the world with rich plant resources. These world tours, designed to create a widely distributed network of imperial institutions, were fully aware of his primary goal of establishing closer ties between Arnold Arnold Arboretum and botanical institutions around the world, as well as developing friendly relations with individuals interested in plants.
Arnold Arboretum, Harvard University, USA
Wilson shipped more than 1500 kinds of plants to England for cultivation, more than any other plant hunter at that time, so there is a nickname of "Wilson of China" in the British natural history, and many plants are still widely cultivated in the West today. Wilson was not suitable for a plant hunter after being injured and disabled, so he began to write books based on his own gathering experience. In 1913, Wilson wrote a book on travel and science based on his own experience, "A Naturalist in West China", prefaced by Sargent, which became the most highly cited book in the history of Botany and Technology in China. The book mainly describes the incomparably rich plant resources, knowledge of plants and trees and ethnic geography on the border between Sichuan and Tibet. The book is divided into two volumes and contains a hundred photographs and a map taken by Wilson. The first volume mainly introduces the geography of the western region, the route of the journey, the characteristics of ethnic groups, and the socio-political and economic overview. The second volume provides a detailed introduction to the flora and fauna of Western Sichuan. In his book, Wilson gave China a high opinion: "There is no garden in the temperate region of the entire Northern Hemisphere that does not cultivate several plants from China. Wilson personally experienced that the world's garden art deeply benefited from China's native flowers, so he praised China as the "mother of the garden". Wilson's extraordinary discovery led to the formation of the "Wilson complex" in the plant kingdom, which continues to this day.
Wilson's Carryable Firearms Pass in Yichang
Wilson's Chinese passport
Wilson's arrival can divide the West's search for introduced plants in China into two stages, the former stage is represented by Fu Qiong and others, mainly from the mainland to introduce the original cultivated flowers; the second stage is mainly represented by Wilson, Forrest, Kington Ward and others, mainly to introduce wild flowers from the mainland, because the number of wild flowers in China is huge, and many flowers are observed, recorded and recognized for the first time, which is more attractive. Therefore, the introduction of this stage has the characteristics of development and domestication, and the location also enters the central and western parts of the continent from the eastern part of the continent. Wilson's four trips to China were a voyage of discovery in western China.
A Naturalist in West China
In 1859, Fu Qiong introduced the Yunjin rhododendron to Britain from the mountains of Zhejiang in the mainland, and the Yunjin rhododendron played a very important role in the hybrid breeding of rhododendron in the world since then, and was considered by Western horticulturists to "prove to have immeasurable value for rhododendron cultivators". With the increase in the import of good rhododendrons, the British public's love for rhododendrons is growing. It was in this context that the Edinburgh Botanic Gardens sent Forrest to China to find and collect rhododendrons, and the Hengduan Mountains became a hunting ground in the eyes of international plant hunters.
Cuckoo on Mount Gaoligong
Yellow rhododendron
The main bases for collecting plants in the Hengduan Mountains of southwest China are Tengchong, Dali and Lijiang. This is not only China, but also the most complex climate type in the world and the most diverse distribution of plant types. Here the mountains are towering, the canyons are deep, the rivers are rushing, the ancient trees are towering, the flowers and grasses are strange, and the mountains are full of wilderness. The unique geographical environment has bred countless unique rare flowers, countless treasures that have never been discovered before with the arrival of plant hunters out of the mountains, to the world, for the world to bring colorful colors to the world, their glimpses, beautiful, dazzling in the international horticultural world, dazzling, shining, becoming the embodiment of beauty, stunning the entire civilized world.
Primroses are now gardened and cultivated
bibliography
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11, Author of "The Pursuit of Rhododendrons: Sketches of Western Collectors", Geng Yuying, Plant Magazine, 2001