Plantsman

A plantsman is an enthusiastic and knowledgeable gardener (amateur or professional), nurseryman or nurserywoman. "Plantsman" can refer to a male or female person, though the terms plantswoman, or even plantsperson, are sometimes used.

The word is sometimes said to be synonymous with "horticulturist", but that indicates a professional involvement, whereas "plantsman" reflects an attitude to (and perhaps even an obsession with) plants. A horticulturist may be a plantsman, but a plantsman is not necessarily a horticulturist.

In the first edition (June 1979) of The Plantsman (a specialist journal published by the Royal Horticultural Society), Sandra Raphael (then a senior editor in the Dictionary Department of the Oxford University Press) contributed a short article on the history and meaning of the word. Her first example came from an issue of the Gardeners' Chronicle of 1881, when it seemed to mean "A nurseryman, a florist" (in the early sense of "florist" as a grower and breeder of flowers, rather than the more recent meaning of someone who sells or arranges them). She added that a modern definition should point out that "plantsman"

In her article, Raphael also quotes botanist David McClintock (writing in the Botanical Society of the British Isles' BSBI News, December 1976) on how to distinguish a botanist from a plantsman, beginning with the simple definition:

John Tradescant the elder (ca 1570s–1638) and his son, John Tradescant the younger (1608–1662), must head the list of historic plantsmen. Charles de l'Ecluse, better known as Carolus Clusius (1526–1609), and Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) are other examples. These early botanists, who certainly grew (and sometimes had also collected) many of the plants they described, can be described as plantsmen (though such a term did not exist in their lifetimes).

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