In the Land of the Blue Poppies by Frank Kingdon Ward

Author:Frank Kingdon Ward [Christopher, Tom]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-82883-5
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2012-09-18T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER VIII

THE HUNT

Plant collectors’ notebooks do not, on the whole, make for stimulating reading. Typically, each entry includes only the site, the date, a description of the plant, and perhaps some indication of the type of habitat it occupied. Kingdon Ward managed to breathe life even into this dull material. His accounts of plant hunting are full of strategies, of relentless pursuit of the prize, of warfare with seed-eating insects and rodents. Prominent in all these stories is Kingdon Ward’s close observation of the geology and environment in which each plant flourished. That, actually, was the secret of Kingdon Ward’s phenomenal ability to locate the gold among the dross, to identify the species that later thrived in English and American gardens. Competitors attributed these triumphs to a near-miraculous “eye.” The truth is that because of his instinctive grasp of ecology, Kingdon Ward knew where to look and just what to take.

It is obvious that in order to collect seed of a plant which appears worthy of introduction, the collector—or one of his accredited representatives—must be on the spot in autumn or early winter. Thus only a limited area can be covered during the season, since the ground has to be gone over at least twice.

But first catch your hare. Having found a good plant, you can always return and harvest seed. Hence there are two phases of the work to be considered: plant hunting, and seed collecting. Only years of experience in a region such as Western China justify the collector harvesting seed of plants he has not seen in flower, but even so he cannot be certain he is not collecting rubbish. Moreover, although after a lengthy apprenticeship he may have a shrewd idea as to whether a flower is new or not, he would be a bold man who would venture to assert he had got seed of something original without first seeing the flower. He may know sufficient to recognize the capsule and foliage of a Primula when he sees one, for all the fifty or so types into which the 500 species might be grouped; to recognize the beaked capsule of a Meconopsis with its lidded ports; the very characteristic capsule of a Rhododendron, for all its limitless variety; the urn-like capsules of gentian, or the club-shaped capsules of Iris. But many Primula or Rhododendron or Meconopsis capsules are not dissimilar, and unless he has made a keen study of the genus, the most hardened collector is likely to go astray. The mastery of Rhododendron alone has now been elevated to an all-time job; so that with no more than three or four favourite starters in hand, the harvester who collects seed “blind” is likely to have a hard time of it. Yet there is much to be said for a journey across unexplored mountain ranges in winter, grabbing seed of anything which tickles the collector’s fancy.

The question of what to collect is briefly discussed in the final chapter. Here we are concerned only with the routine work, the potted yearning, the hopes and fears, and the fun of harvest.

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