Erin Alvarez

Erin Alvarez
UF/IFAS Environmental Horticulture Dept
30th Annual
Florida Master Gardener Conference
October 25, 2010
y You, probably!
y Those who seek to discover or document
Botanists
y Naturalists
y Photographers
y Painters
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y What’s a Plant Hunter?
Acquisition
y Collectors
y Researchers’
y ….and others
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“When I consider the melancholy fate of
so many of botany's votaries, I am
tempted to ask whether men are in
their right mind who so desperately
risk life and everything else through
the love of ‘collecting' plants.”
-Carolus Linnaeus
Glory of the Scientist, 1737
y “Nobody climbs mountains for
scientific reasons. Science is used to
raise money for the expeditions, but
you really climb for the hell of it.”
-Sir Edmund Hillary
y Are plants so different?
Shout out: name some famous explorers
(e.g. Christopher Columbus)
y Aristotle
Traveled to Asia
y 4th C BC: kept a teaching garden in Athens
y Actually started binomial nomenclature, but gets no
credit for it
y One of his most famous students?
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y Alexander the Great!
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Collected plants on his travels for his mentor, Aristotle
y Asia (India, China) to Europe (Greece, Rome)
Corresponded with Aristotle about bamboo
y Cotton, pepper, cinnamon, bananas, banyan tree,
oranges (golden apples?)
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y Spain, Portugal, Netherlands
Competed for access to East Indies
y Gold, spices, glory
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Shout out: Name an important explorer from this era.
Random fact!
y The world’s largest flower was discovered in Sumatra
by Joseph Arnold
39” diameter, up to 22 lbs
y Rafflesia sp.
y Namesake: Sir Thomas Raffles
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y Looked for and found spices and plants
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Tobacco, potatoes
y Brought old world plants to the new
world
Wheat, barley, sugarcane, grape vines
y Invasive?
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y 1498: Vasco da Gama
Landed at Tierra del Fuego: “For Christ
and spices!”
y Went to India for black pepper
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y Black Pepper Tangent
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400 BC: Greeks traded with India
y 1st invasion of Rome by
Alaric the Goth (Germans!)
y 15th C Europe saw a
1:1 pepper to gold ratio
y England joins the party
y The Bartrams
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Pennsylvania Quakers
Father (John) and son (William)
1729: John Bartram started a botanical
garden
Plant trading with European
patron support
Early marketing genius? North
American plants for European
gardens
y John Bartram
King (Farmer) George III’s North
American Botanist
y 1760: Explored southern North
America
y Discovered flowering magnolia
relative in swamps of southeastern
Georgia-Franklinia alatomaha
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y Named for Benjamin Franklin
y Extinct in 1790
y William Bartram
1770s: Explored southern North America
y Wrote “Bartram’s Travels”
y Puc-puggee, Payne’s Prairie
y Discovered: Oakleaf hydrangea, Flame
azalea, Spider lily, Bottlebrush buckeye,
Venus flytrap, pitcher plant, etc.
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y England’s picking up steam!
y 1768: HRH sends James Cook after
new continent
Joined by Joseph Banks, team of
naturalists
y Sailed the Endeavor from Plymouth to
Brazil, S. America, Tahiti, Australia,
New Zealand
y New Zealand flax lily, eucalyptus,
mimosa, acacia, araucaria
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y Joseph Banks: Rock star botanist?
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Explored Newfoundland and Labrador
Wealthy, landed
1781: Baronet
42 years as president of Royal Society
Advisor to King George III
Friendship with Carl Linnaeus
y Banksia spp, Rosa banksiae
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Retirement?
y Started Kew Gardens !
First true botanical garden
y with King George III’s support
y Brought 7,000 plants to England over 30
years
y Tree peony, cycads, tiger lily, wisteria,
many more…
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y Carl (Carolus) Linnaeus
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Father of binomial nomenclature
Goofed off in school
Explored Lapland as a student
First ethnobotanist?
Went ‘native’
Married a local
y “She turned almost overnight into a dragon'
y ‘He was to regard her with respect and terror for the rest of
his life'
y Cook’s successor?
y Capt. William Bligh
1787: the Bounty
y Breadfruit expedition to Tahiti
y Didn’t end well
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y Early 1800s in the Americas
y Lewis and Clark
Great Plains
y Berberis, fritillaries, lisianthus,
ladyslipper, tansy, valerian
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y Thomas Jefferson
Lewis and Clark collected partly for
Jefferson
y Madame de Tessé: Koelreuteria
paniculata
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y Robert Fortune
Mid-late 1800s: China to England
y British East India Company-introduced
tea from China to India in 1848
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y illegally
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Also discovered: balloon flower,
kumquat, bleeding heart, chinese
fringe tree, abelia, weigela
y Plant exploration continues
y George Forrest: early 1900s
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Chemist: medicinal plants
Australian gold rush
Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh
Collected rhododendrons in SW China
Discovered 1200 species, including
rhododendron, buddleias, pieris,
cotoneasters, alliums, and primrose
y David Fairchild
The Kampong
y Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden
namesake
y Introduced over 200k plants to the US
y Soybeans, mangoes, nectarines, dates,
ficus, you name it!
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y Richard Evans Schultes
1938: Harvard graduate student
describes Panaeolus campanulatus
y 1957: investment banker reads
articles, goes to Mexico for
mushrooms and writes article in Life
magazine
y Magic Mushrooms are born
y Ethnobotany
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y Curare, taxus, aspirin, many more
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Indiana Jones?
y Modern plant explorers still very active
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Botanical gardens
Conservation efforts
Writers
Nurserymen
Photographers
Illustrators
You?
“In every walk with nature one
receives far more than he
seeks.”
-John Muir
Questions?
[email protected]