A Traveller in Plants
Almost the last of the travellers in plants (since the original firm of Veitch ceased to be) is Mr. Kingdon Ward, hardly less great as a geographer than as botanist. Close accounts of his journeys have been for long appearing in The Gardener's Chronicle (which is to the garden what Nature is to science) ; and one need not be a botanist to feel the thrill of his hulk for this and that rare plant and seed. Even The Voyage of the Beagle, that classic, hardly makes better reading. You feel in every passage the zest of the hunt ; big game shooting is nothing to it. "It was on this day that I Must find and collect my new Cypripedium. . If I did not find it on this day, I might never see it again." His nervousness increased till he came upon a host, like Wordsworth with the daffodils, and his coolie staggered under the weight of the booty. Our gardens already gleam with Mr. Kingdon Ward's finds, but we shall not know the full wealth of his stock for another 20 years. I suppose the Rhododendrons are the richest group ; but some of us have a special desire to know whether the new spindles- will be transferable to English gardens. A meconopsis or a primula may spread from Asia to oui small gardens within a year; but the trees and bushes may• pot flower, if they flower at all, for- a score of years. - •
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