Lobb brothers

A memorial plaque in churchyard, , where Thomas Lobb was buried (his brother, William, died in California). sue shephard sue hunters extraordinaire While plant collectors such as Ernest Wilson and were lauded at the time – and remain famous to this day – the Cornish Lobb brothers, William and Thomas, have been overlooked by comparison, yet many of their introductions remain popular garden Author: Matthew Biggs, freelance horticultural journalist

his year is the 150th and 120th anniversary of first collector. James wanted someone who knew the deaths of plant-collecting brothers, William ‘what to collect for a nurseryman, rather than one who (1809–1864) and Thomas Lobb (1820–1894) only appraised plants with a botanist’s ego’. Employing respectively. They were the first of 23 plant William proved an inspired decision on his part. collectors who searched the globe for desirable T plants to boost the catalogues of Veitch’s Nursery, one of the most significant commercial growers of the time, From 1840 to 1844, and 1845 to 1848, William Lobb based in Devon and London. Whether new introductions collected in , sending back plants from or rarities in botanical collections at the time, all were , , , and beyond to , collected in sufficient numbers for them to be propagated and especially from . From 1849 he worked in and sold to gardeners. Many of the Lobbs’ introductions western North America, in and California, where are still available, and are still widely grown today. he settled until his death on 3 May 1864. The brothers spent their early years in , north William introduced a host of outstanding plants and is Cornwall, where their father worked at nearby Pencarrow. responsible for the widespread cultivation of two iconic Thomas, who was working at Veitch’s Nursery in Mount conifers. (monkey puzzle) was Radford, , suggested his brother William as their introduced to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew from »

June 2014 | The Garden 77 h eig Lobb brothers Sl e ik M / S H Chile by its collector , who travelled with conservatory plants and tender R Captain Vancouver on his 1791–95 circumnavigation of the for the Vanda coerulea globe. James Veitch seems to have been the first to spot conservatories of the wealthy. At the Sequoiadendron Fremontodendron (blue orchid). giganteum californicum the ornamental potential of Araucaria araucana, and end of his career, Thomas had a leg Assam (India), (giant redwood (flannel bush). he commissioned Lobb to collect seed on his first trip to amputated due to injuries sustained Thailand, Burma. AVIES or wellingtonia). Southwest USA and T D Chile. The 3,000 seeds Lobb harvested helped ensure the while collecting, and lived out his UR O Sierra , northwest Mexico. C R rise of monkey puzzle to fashionable status symbols years in Devoran, Cornwall. A California. H gh L r ei e Sl U v in Victorian urban gardens and country estates alike. He sent A o e P k l i / G M L / n He also sent a large number of Sequoiadendron jasminiflorumwith white flowers and a P S h S H o R J

giganteum (giant redwood) seeds from Calaveras Grove deep pink ‘eye’ from Malacca. This and /

P Hoya lanceolata

A during the Californian ‘Gold Rush’ that began in 1848. his collection of an orange-flowered G subsp. bella Botanist named the Wellingtonia on Rhododendron javanicum contributed (beautiful wax plant). Christmas Eve 1853 to commemorate the Duke of to the Victorian craze for growing India, Nepal, Burma. Wellington ‘who stands as high above his contemporaries tender (Vireya) rhodo­dendrons. as the Californian above the surrounding forests’. Veitch’s Nursery created some 30 However, the name had already been used and, after hybrids from Thomas’s collections. He USA considerable wrangling, it was renamed Sequoiadendron also introduced Medinilla magnifica for Sequoia, a native American Cherokee, who gave this (rose grape), a tropical epiphyte from indigenous people their alphabet. Manila in the Philippines with large, Scan the British landscape today and early plantings pale pink bracts; it first flowered in Rhododendron malayanum (a Vireya rhododendron). Phalaenopsis often tower above surrounding trees. William also intro­ the UK in April 1850, and is still Malaysia and Sulawesi. amabilis (a moth orchid). duced two familiar from the Chiloé Archipelago in widely available as a (somewhat AYLIS & B R Java, Philippines, india E H southern Chile. darwinii, robust with glossy, temperamental) house plant. C New Guinea. T E L spiny leaves and golden-orange flowers, was discovered Another jewel, Hoya bella – now burma F e is / d ra L a P P

by , but introduced by Lobb in 1849, and Hoya lanceolata subsp. bella – sent from S y d n Escallonia rubra var. macrantha, a maritime hedging Talung Kola Mountain in Burma (Myanmar) A

/

arsh S hm stalwart with glossy young shoots and rose-carmine was enthusiastically described by writers as H c R it T hookerianum m a spring flowers, which remains popular: ‘As a subject ‘This first gem of the air’ and ‘The most lovely of Malay h (Chile lantern a r Peninsula G for seaside planting, few shrubs are more charming or all the Hoya, resembling an amethyst set in silver’.

/ tree). S Coastal Chile H useful,’ notes Hortus Veitchii (see box, opposite). Thomas also beguiled gardeners with orchids, R (38–43°s). He also introduced speciosum, with including ‘blue orchid’, Vanda coerulea from the Khasia borneo scarlet flowers and metallic blue fruits, often found Hills, Assam, northeast India, which flowered for the first south sumatra america meandering happily up yew hedges in gardens time in Britain in December 1850. A plant was exhibited Tropaeolum in moist climates. It inhabits the margins of at a meeting of the Horticultural Society of London (now new guinea speciosum (flame forest. Other outstanding ‘finds’ the RHS) in Regent Street, where it was received ‘with java nasturtium). included , marked favour’. He also collected white-flowered moth Chilean with elegant, cherry-coloured lanterns orchid Phalaenopsis amabilis, and a number of (lower ard pp altitudes). he (initially recommended as a ‘beautiful carnivorous (monkey cups) such as S l o r greenhouse ’); spinosa, N. albomarginata from Borneo – previously unknown to a C

/ Veitch’s Nursery

S boasting waxy, scarlet, tubular flowers with science – and ‘numerous ’. Anyone growing Deutzia

H R yellow mouths; white-flowered , gracilis may be surprised to know it, too, was a Thomas For more than 100 years, five generations of arrayed in cinnamon and cream peeling bark, Lobb introduction, from its native Japan. Veitches ran the largest and most influential with clouds of white flowers; and the waxy The Lobb brothers made a great contribution to nurseries in Europe. After established the first nursery in Killerton, Devon, he and his Luma apiculata bells of rosea. gardening, with the number and diversity of choice (temu or son James bought land in Mount Radford, Exeter However, all of these glories are (arguably) crowned by plants they introduced, yet they are less well known than Chilean and built up the business. At the height of their r ve myrtle). Andes (Chilean fire bush). Flowering in many other 19th-century plant collectors. As far as can be lo success the dynasty – run as separate concerns G n between Chile h late May or June, its vivid orange-scarlet blooms are simply ascertained, images of neither brother have come down o and Argentina – also owned the fashionable Royal Exotic Nursery J / L ibrary L indley Araucaria P (33–45°s). breathtaking against a blue sky. Needing a sheltered, sunny to us. Yet, in this, their year of significant anniversaries, is on the King’s Road in Chelsea (established by A RHS araucana G spot in moist, acidic soil to flourish, it flowered for the it not time their contribution to our gardens was fully James Veitch junior, pictured), and other sites (monkey puzzle). High Andes, first time in Britain at Veitch’s Nursery in May 1853: those recognised, beginning with their elevation to the around London. They were renowned for employing their own plant Chile and who nurtured it must have been astonished. All these pantheon of plant-hunting ‘greats’? collectors, including members of the family, Richard Pearce, and EH Wilson Argentina species confirm that William Lobb did indeed know (who collected Davidia involucrata while in their employment). (37–40°s). exactly what to collect for his nurserymen employers. By the First World War the Veitch dynasty had introduced 1,281 plants. Further reading Among these were 498 greenhouse plants, 232 orchids and 253 deciduous on ibs trees, shrubs and climbers. Their publications include Hortus Veitchii G A new book on the Lobb brothers is due to be a p Thomas Lobb ip Berberis darwinii published this month. (1906), a history and list of their most remarkable introductions, and il h (Darwin’s William’s younger brother Thomas made four trips to ✤ Blue Orchid and Big Tree: Plant Hunters P Veitch’s Manual of the Coniferae (1881). The family’s extraordinary but /

S barberry). William and Thomas Lobb and the Victorian H southeast Asia between 1843 and 1860, visiting many complex history concluded with the death of in 1969, but R Chiloé Mania for the Exotic, by Sue Shephard and Archipelago, Chile areas, among them Singapore, Java, Sumatra, Burma, Toby Musgrave, Redcliffe Press, June 2014, their impact on the world of plants and gardens remains immense. (42–44°s) Borneo, the Philippines and India. He focused on orchids, £19.50, isbn 9781908326607.

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