Book Review: Flower Hunters

Flower Hunters is a superb book written by Mary and John Gribben, at the time of writing the book they are Visiting Fellows at the University of Sussex and have written other books related to the sciences.

This book looks at John Ray and then follows on with 11 flower hunters covering a period of time between 1627 - 1911. They laid the foundations of Botany with their insight and with the plants and trees that they introduced to England and other parts of the world.

The book is so well written that it has interrupted my reading of other books and captured my imagination. I can't help but admire these botanists, whether they were involved with the theory, naming nomenclature, exploration for new specimins, or as with Marianne North; painting fantastic images of the plants in their native environment. Along with the story of these brave explorers of Botany, which provides a great insight to the lengths they were willing to go to in obtaining the plants they so desperately needed, at the end of each chapter a section entitled 'In the Garden' invokes a sense of what the Botanists would have had in their gardens, or what we can plant to feel more connected to them and the plants they spent their lives questing for.

Here is a list of the individuals explored in this book:

Name Life span Best known for John Ray 1627-1705 Classification of Plants Carl Linnaeus 1707-1778 Binomial Naming System Joseph Banks 1743-1820 Endeavour Voyage, Botany Bay, Kew Francis Masson 1741-1805 Kew Garden's first flower hunter Carl Peter Thunberg 1742-1828 Botanical Explorer of Japan David Douglas 1799-1834 Introduction of many trees for the timber industry William Lobb 1809-1864 Commercial Explorer for Veitch Thomas Lobb 1817-1894 Commercial Explorer for Veitch Robert Fortune 1812-1880 Botanical Exploration of China. Creator of Black Tea industry in India Marianne North 1830-1890 Botanical Artist, travelled around the world twice painting plants and flowers Richard Spruce 1817-1893 Cinchona tree, saving millions of lives from Malaria Joseph Dalton Hooker 1817-1911 Antarctic and Himalaya Exploration, Rhododendron craze Own or Loan: Loan Read Again:  Yes Recommend: Yes Overall out of Five: 4