Passionate plant collectors remembered in a Cornish garden
What risks did the early plant collectors take to bring us the plants we know and love? Who found what and where? And how similar are their finds to the plants we grow today? Christian Lamb has been to extraordinary lengths to find out, as we soon discover in ‘From the Ends of the Earth’.
This lively and richly-illustrated book is all about the special plants that Christian grows in her small garden in Cornwall, which she calls her ‘Living Plant Museum’. The plants are mostly chosen because she likes them, but also for their fascinating and colourful history. Christian tells us which collectors found her treasures – and the amazing challenges they faced bringing them back to our shores – with many quotes from diaries and personal writings which bring here hero plantaholics to life. She has dug deep into the Linnean, Kew, British, Royal Horticultural and Natural History Libraries to unearth all kinds of new or little-known facts.
Christian also gaily recounts her own intrepid adventures following in the footsteps of the early collectors; around New Zealand in the wake of Joseph Banks, up the Yangtze after Robert Fortune, to North, South and Central America in the paths of Lewis and Clark, the Lobb brothers and others – all the more inspiring since Christian is a spry octogenarian, who might by now have been expected to have hung up her spade.
‘True character, very funny and idiosyncratic’
Sir Roy Strong, Hon. D. Litt., Ph.D., FSA, FRSL.
‘Christian Lamb emulates the great plant hunters in her endeavours to find and grow unusual plants.’
Dr John Akeroyd
Founder of Plant Talk magazine
Read other reviews of ‘From the ends of the Earth’.
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ISBN: 1-903071-08-9
Published by Bene Factum Publishing
Illustrated, 210 pages
RRP: £17.99