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NOTES
1
Bretschneider, Emil
History of European Botanical Discoveries in China
(Leipzig: Zentral-Antiquariat; 1981, reprint of the original 1898 edition), pp.
225, 234, and 235-236, which state that on the 17th of February, the
Embassy's ship struck a coral reef in the Gaspar (Banca) Straights and became a
total wreck, but all the people were saved. All of Abel's original collections
went down with the ship. He then procured a small collection of Chinese
plants while at Batavia in the east Indies, and his later written identifications
came from specimens courtesy of a benefactor to whom Abel also gave the
small collection. And the Embassy, upon reaching St. Helena on
June 27, is recorded as having had an interview with Napoleon Bonaparte.
Per
Oliphant
(
Narrative of the Earl of Elgin's Mission to China and Japan in the Years 1857,
1858 and 1859
(New York: Augustus M. Kelley, Publishers; 1969. First edition
1859 by William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh & London), Vol. I,
pp. 180-181), in Feb. 1858, "We had now spent two months in the Canton
River, and had exhausted the attractions of its banks and the resources
of Canton. We had visited the Fatee Gardens, situated in a creek
crowded with the boats which had taken refuge there on our occupation
[of Canton]. Here box-trees were cut in the shapes of animals or
dragons; young bamboos were fantastically twisted; gaudy and
sweet-scented flowers bloomed in rows of pots; quaint little bridges
led over pools, the water of which was hidden by broad-leaved languid
lilies; and grotesque pavilions surmounted rocky islets. All
Chinese gardens partake of much the same character."
A dozen years earlier
Robert Fortune
had been to the Fa-tee Gardens during his "undercover" visit into
China. Oliphant (Vol. I, pp. 206-207) notes "I
observe that Mr. Fortune has added as little to our previous limited
knowledge of Soo-chow as I have, but he is less excusable [than we who
are openly here to enforce a British-Chinese treaty with gunboats], as
he seems to have resided there for some time in the disguise of a Chinaman."
Per "The Fa Tee Nurseries of South China" by Hazel Le Rougetel (
Garden History:
the Journal of the Garden History Society; London; Vol. 10, No. 1, pp.
70-73), pg. 73, "During the visit to China in 1981 it was quite by
chance, when visiting a Horticultural Commune in this area just outside
Canton, they learned that one of the Brigades works in a nursery which
has existed for two hundred years and so hastened to see it.
The inscription over the gate leading to the small walled garden
gives the name of the Brigade as Hwa Di, mandarin for the Cantonese Fa
Tee. There are a few trees around the perimeter and an aged
frangipani, then in flower, in the middle, bonsai are ranged along the
narow paths and some of the old buildings remain on one side.
Thus it was very much on the lines of the East India Company's garden
described by
Fortune
; certainly it was contemporary with it and most
probably would have been visted by
Livingstone
and Reeves. Today's garden historians may well have been following in the footsteps
of those three early collectors in China's Flowery Land."
In 1816, John Reeves introduced
Wisteria sinensis
to European gardening from nurseries in Canton, China. The first two
plants to be exported, each sent on-board a different ship, arrived in
the same month of May. Reeves was a keen natural historian and knew the Fa
Tee Nurseries well, although, writing after his retirement (at which
time he was instrumental in sending Robert Fortune to China), he was
somewhat critical:
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"Of Chinese gardening and gardens I entertain myself a very low idea;
it was only by engaging to purchase them that I got Wisteria propagated
for sale and I tried in vain to get the gardeners of Fa Te to collect
their own wild plants, of which they have so many beautiful ones (and
of which I have drawings) not yet brought to England; nothing will
drive them out of 'old custom'. They still go on, increasing only such
as are requested to keep up the usual monthly supplies of blooming
plants to those who hire them."
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Reeves (1774-1856) arrived in China in 1812 as a
tea inspector for the Canton Factory of the East India Company, a lucrative position.
Before his departure for China, he had been introduced to Joseph Banks through a relative
and had received instructions for collecting curious plants and botanical lore. In China, Reeves
developed broad interests in science, including astronomy, but he devoted the majority of his
attention to horticulture and natural history. Like most of his contemporaries, he practiced
science as a gentlemanly pursuit, a respectable hobby rather than a true vocation. He
published a few brief notes in obscure journals, collaborating with the missionary-sinologist
Robert Morrison on a paper about Chinese materia medica and a report on a solar
eclipse, neither of which received notice from the scientific community in Britain. He
also helped Morrison with the scientific terms in his English-Chinese dictionary.
John Reeve's success derived less from his learning
than from his zeal, social connections, and economic resources. He purchased large
numbers of new finds from the Fa-tee nurseries and sought rarities in the gardens of his
Chinese friends, notably Puankequa II
and that merchant's brother, "the Squire." Though most died en route, he shipped thousands
of plants to Britain. He offered help and patronage to collectors sent out by the
Horticultural Society of London, securing them access to the gardens of local Chinese
merchants and introducing them to Thomas Beale
and John Livingstone. Many of the plants
Reeves sent to England were from Beale's garden; as were the exotic birds he brought home with him.
His most important contributions to natural history
were the detailed botanical and zoological drawings that he sent to the Horticultural Society and
his other scientific correspondents.
(
http://www.huntington.org/BotanicalDiv/Timeline.html,
1816; Le Rougetel, pp. 71, 72; Fan, Fa-ti
British Naturalists in Qing China: Science, Empire, and Cultural Encounter
(Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press; 2004), pp. 43-45, 174. The above illustration of
the Gardens ("Huadi," spelled differently in the writings of British travelers and residents in China)
across the river from Canton is Figure 1 after pg. 90 with the caption: "Vicinities of the Canton
Factories. The Canton Factories were located outside the southwestern corner of the walled
city of Canton, on the banks of the Pearl River. Although foreigners were not allowed to enter
the city except on rare occasions, they were in daily contact with the Chinese along the Pearl River
and in the neighborhood of the Canton Factories." No source given. Per pg. 15, Western
traders were confined to a corner of Canton, staying in a row of warehouses, called the Factories,
a few hundred yards long.)
See also Tiffany
and Hickok.
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