Augustine Henry and the Exploration of the Chinese Flora

Augustine Henry and the E. Charles Nelson Exploration of the Chinese Flora The plant-collector’s job is to uncover the hidden studies as rapidly as he could, obtained his beauties of the world, so that others may share medical qualifications, passed the Chinese his joy .... Customs Service examinations, for which he - Frank From China to Hkamti Kingdon Ward, had acquired a working knowledge of Long Chinese, and left for China in the autumn of Although he is generally believed to have 1881. been born in Ireland, Augustine Henry was Henry remained in the customs service born in Dundee, Scotland, on July 2, 1857. until the end of 1900, during which time he His father, Bernard, was a native of County made considerable collections of the native Derry in the North of Ireland, and his Chinese flora. Ernest Wilson is reported to - mother was a local girl, Mary MacNamee. have said that "no one in any age has con- She met Bernard Henry while he was visit- tributed more to the knowledge of Chinese ing his married sister, who lived in Dundee. plants than this scholarly Irishman," and in After their marriage, and shortly after Au- Bernard and re- gustine’s birth, Mary Henry The portrait of Augustine Henry in this photo- turned to Ireland with their son and settled graph hangs in the National Botanic Gardens in in Cookstown in County Tyrone. Bernard Dublin, Ireland. It was pamted by Celia Harrison. owned a grocery shop in the town and also bought and sold flax. Austin, as Augustine was called, went to Cookstown Academy. He was a brilliant scholar and eventually gained a place in the Queen’s College, Galway, where he studied natural science and philosophy; he grad- uated in 1877 at the age of 20 with a first- class degree. In the following year he obtained a Master of Arts degree at the Queen’s College in Belfast. After that he spent a year in London studying medicine in one of the teaching hospitals. During a visit to Belfast about 1879 he met Sir Robert Hart, who re- cruited him for the Imperial Maritime Cus- toms Service in China. Henry completed his 22E 1929 the second fascicle of Icones Plan- March 1882 he was assigned to Yichang tarum Sinicarum was published in Beijing ("Ichang" in Henry’s correspondence), a port (Peking) with the following dedication: on the Yangtze River, about a thousand miles near the borders of Hubei and Augustine Henry through whose assiduous bo- inland, tanical exploration of Central and South-Westem Sichuan provinces. There he served as the China the knowledge of our flora has been greatly assistant medical officer and also performed extended. customs duties. For a while he spent his leisure time on shooting trips in the nearby Other botanists shared these al- opinions, countryside, but he was a poor shot and in Arthur Grove commented that though 1884 he began to pursue less mobile crea- Henry "was more concerned in botanical tures : plants. exploration than in horticultural exploita- In his diary he recorded his first botanical and more of a tion, thought getting specimen excursion on November 25, 1884, when he to Kew than of the seeds safely getting crossed the river at Yichang and collected which enable the to might particular plant some plants near the village of Shiliujing. be raised" for in cultivation the British Isles. On March 20, 1885, he wrote to the director But that is an unfair comment. was Henry of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, saying not oblivious to horticultural but potential, that a number of medicinal plants were cul- because he was occupied by his work at the tivated around Yichang. He reported that customs office he could in engage the task of "there seem to be a fair number of interest- and seed in his plant hunting collecting only ing plants; and as this part of China is not free time. Seed and still a collecting was, is, very well known to botanists interesting two visits to time-consuming task, requiring specimens might be obtained." Henry con- a one to collect the in flower habitat, plant fessed that he knew very little of botany, but for identification and a second to obtain ripe he offered to collect specimens and send seeds. first letter to Kew accom- Henry’s them to Kew "if you think they would prove panied seeds of the lacquer tree (Rhus ver- useful." niciflua) and in the next few years he sent About the same time he wrote to a Dr. other seeds, including Camellia euryoides, Wales regarding botanical work. His letter Rosa Buddleia and a lin- banksiae, davidii, was passed on to Henry Hance (1827-1886), den in (Tilia tuan). On leaving Yichang who was one of the leading experts on the March 1889 he brought with him bulbs of an Chinese flora at that time as well as British which he to orange-flowered lily, gave vice-consul in Canton. Hance replied on Charles who forwarded some to Ford, Kew; April 1, 1881, suggesting some useful books this was the Henry lily (Lilium henryi1, and recommending that "in order to work at which is cultivated in widely gardens today so novel and comparatively unknown a flora has the of a lime-toler- (and advantage being in a tolerably satisfactory manner, a student ant species). Henry in China For the first few months of his time in The Henry honeysuckle (Lonicera henryi)./. China, Henry was stationed in Shanghai. In Drawing by Michael Grassi. 23 24 ~-, ought to have a fairly good herbarium and a straints. He had to be single minded and col- very considerable library, with all the impor- lect seeds and bulbs of plants that would be tant systematic monographs and memoirs profitable for his employer. Maries did make on families & genera." He suggested to some notable discoveries at Yichang, includ- Henry that "any person with a love of ing the Chinese witch hazel (Hamamelis botany can do invaluable service even by mollis which was raised from his seed by collecting, whilst both leisure and want of Veitch but grew unrecognized in the London pecuniary means may render it impossible nursery for almost 20 years. for him to attempt to attack the study" on a Another person who collected at Yichang large scale. before Henry was Thomas Watters, by coin- The value of that advice to Henry may be cidence also Irish. The coincidence is more gauged by the fact that the letter in which it remarkable in that Watters was the brother was written and a second one containing a of Augustine Henry’s sweetheart, Harriet recipe for an insect repellent to preserve her- Watters. Harriet turned down Henry’s pro- barium specimens are the only letters that posal of marriage but corresponded with him survive among Augustine Henry’s papers for many years while he was in China. from his first tour of duty in China. Not Thomas Watters was a scholar with a special even the reply of Sir Joseph Hooker, director interest in Chinese Buddhism, and he was a of Kew, survives from the voluminous corre- member of the British consular service in spondence that Henry conducted with China from 1863 until 1894. In 1878 he was botanists after 1885. appointed acting consul in Yichang and dur- Having been advised by Hance, and un- ing his free time collected herbarium speci- doubtedly encouraged by Hooker, Henry mens for Hance. Watters also responded to a began to collect assiduously and thereby "to request made by the authorities at Kew for open the treasure chest of the Chinese materials on economic botany; at Yichang flora."" he discovered the service viburnum (Vibur- Other botanists, amateur and professional, num utile/, which was used for making had collected at Yichang before, but because pipestems. His other notable find was the they were eclipsed by Augustine Henry, Chinese primrose (Primula sinensis). Wat- their work is little known and their collec- ters sent some living plants to Charles Ford tions do not seem to amount to much. at the botanical garden in Hong Kong, but Charles Maries (c. 1851-1902) was sent to does not seem to have sent seeds or living China by James Veitch, the famous London plants to the British Isles. It is said that Wat- nurseryman, in 1879. According to Veitch he ters and Henry met in China, but no docu- lacked staying power and did not get on well ments describing such a meeting exist. with the Chinese, who resented his Augustine Henry, therefore, was in vir- "difficile" nature and destroyed his collec- tually unexplored territory. It was an area of tions. Thus Maries returned to England with outstanding botanical riches, "the Klondike very few plants. Unlike Henry, Maries was of plant gold." Between November 1884 and on a commercial expedition; he was not a February 1889 Henry discovered about 50U leisured explorer without deadlines or con- species new to Western scientists, about 25 25 new genera, and one plant, Trapella sinensis, there was nothing in them suitable for you that is now in a family by itself, the to plant. I must get you something soon." A Trapellaceae. He made use of native collec- few weeks later, as promised, Augustine tors, whom he trained to bring dried speci- Henry sent a "box containing 3 kinds of or- mens to him, although they were not as chids (I haven’t seen the flowers) procured productive as Henry wished. He combined on ... trees at 7000 [feet]. If they arrive via- the collection of herbarium specimens with ble and plantable, please take half of each studies of ethnobotany and recorded the kind and send the other half" to Bulley.

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