Ernest Henry Wilson
| Ernest Henry Wilson | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
15 February 1876 Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire, England |
| Died | 15 October 1930 (aged 54) Worcester, Massachusetts USA |
| Cause of death | Road traffic accident |
| Nationality | England |
| Other names | "Chinese" Wilson |
| Education | Birmingham Municipal Technical School |
| Occupation | Plant collector |
Ernest Henry "Chinese" Wilson (15 February 1876 – 15 October 1930), better known as E. H. Wilson, was a notable English plant collector who introduced a large range of about 2000 of Asian plant species to the West; some sixty bear his name.
Wilson was born in Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire but the family soon moved to Shirley, Warwickshire, where they set up a floristry business. He left school early for employment at the local nursery of Messrs. Hewitt, Warwickshire, as apprentice gardener, and, aged 16, at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens; there he also studied at Birmingham Municipal Technical School in the evenings, receiving the Queen's Prize for botany. In 1897 he began work at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, where he won the Hooker Prize for an essay on conifers. He then accepted a position as Chinese plant collector with the firm of James Veitch & Sons, who were eager above all to retrieve the dove tree, Davidia involucrata. "Stick to the one thing you are after," advised Harry Veitch, who had more than a dozen plant hunters on payroll, "and don't spend time and money wandering about. Probably every worthwhile plant in China has now been introduced to Europe."
After six months at Veitch's Coombe Woods Nursery, Wilson travelled west towards China, stopping for five days at the Arnold Arboretum in Boston, Massachusetts, where he carried a letter of introduction to Charles Sprague Sargent and studied techniques for shipping seeds and plants without damage. He continued across the U.S. by train, and sailed from San Francisco, reaching Hong Kong on 3 June 1899. Sargent had suggested he head straight to Simao to talk to Augustine Henry, who had seen a unique dove tree twelve years previously. Though the tree had been recently cut down when Wilson reached it, he rediscovered the specimens noticed by Père David 600 km away in Yichang, Hubei. Wilson collected for two years in Hubei Province, reaching isolated mountain valleys with an intrepid spirit that has made him legendary, before returning to England in April 1902 with seed of 305 species, and 35 Wardian cases of bulbs, corms, rhizomes, and tubers, many of which Veitch introduced into Western commerce, as well as dried herbarium specimens, representing some 906 plant species.
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