28March2024

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In The Footsteps Of Augustine Henry

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By Tim Austen. Last night, I was lucky enough to have time to attend a free lecture given by Seamus O'Brien, Head Gardener at Kilmacurragh gardens in Co. Wicklow held in the Royal Dublin Society's Minerva suite. I am sure there were at least 100 people in attendance to hear Seamus expand on the life and plant collecting exploits of Augustine Henry in China.

Seamus's talk pulled you in to the world of the Victorian plant-hunter painting a picture of the hardy adventurer seeking plants in uncharted territories, meeting previously unknown tribes (including head-hunters) and describing ethnic minorities living on the margins of known Chinese society at that time. Henry sent back a phenomenal 158,000 plant specimens to Kew gardens during his time abroad. His most famous find is Davidia involucrata otherwise known as the Handkerchief or Dove tree.

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In the early noughties, Seamus and an intrepid team of Irish horticulturalists, including Helen Dillon, retraced the plant collecting route of this famous Irish plantsman in China. He told us about the astounding, somewhat heart-wrenching and environmentally controversial Three Gorges Dam Project, which involved flooding a large and spectacular part of the Yangtze River. The dam is 62 stories high and 2.5miles long and 2.5million people had to be resettled to accommodate the reservoir. The flooding has effectively drowned whole villages and cities as well as the unique vegetation of the gorge with a consequent loss of at least 2 species of plant.

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Seamus collected many of Henry's earlier plant discoveries on his trip and I understand that these are being used as a basis for repopulating Kilmacurragh with interesting and unusual Chinese flora. You can find out more about the life and work of Augustine Henry in Seamus's book “In the Footsteps of Augustine Henry.” Seamus introduced us to a smattering of other plant-collecting heroes during his talk and his next book will be about plant-hunter Frank Kingdon-Ward.

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It's all very inspiring and I feel like downing the design pen and heading straight-off for some adventure!

Source: The Landscape Architects Journal - In The Footsteps Of Augustine Henry