An Early History of Vireya the People, Places & Plants of the Nineteenth Century
An Early History of Vireya The People, Places & Plants of the Nineteenth Century Chris Callard The distribution of Rhododendron subgenus Vireya is centred on the botanical region known as Malesia – an area of south-east Asia encompassing the Malay Archipelago, the Philippines, Borneo, Indonesia and New Guinea and surrounding island groups. It is for this reason that vireyas have sometimes in the past been referred to as ‘Malesian Rhododendrons’, although nowadays this is not considered a strictly accurate term as a small number of the 318 species in subgenus Vireya grow outside this region and, similarly, a few species from other subgenera of Rhododendron are also to be found within its boundaries. Broadly speaking, the Vireya group extends from Taiwan in the north to Queensland, Australia in the south, and from India in the west to the Solomon Islands in the east. Much of the early recorded history of the plants of Rhododendron subgenus Vireya came about as a result of the activities of European nations, particularly Britain and Holland, pursuing their colonial ambitions across the Malay Archipelago and, later, east to New Guinea. As their Empires expanded into these previously unexplored territories, settlements were established and expeditions mounted to survey the natural wealth and geography of the land. Many of these early explorers had scientific backgrounds, although not always in botany, and collected all manner of exotic flora and fauna found in these unfamiliar surroundings, to ship back to their homelands. The Vireya story starts in June 1821 when the Scotsman, William Jack, one of “a party of gentlemen”i, set out from Bencoolen (now Bengkulu), a settlement on the south-west coast of Sumatra, to reach the summit of Gunong Benko (Bungkuk), the so-called Sugar Loaf Mountain, “not estimated to exceed 3,000 feet in height”.
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