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 Unsung heroes who have changed our world.
The Plant Hunters were not just botanists, they were adventurers and explorers. They had to be tough to survive the conditions they faced in far-flung corners of the world. They survived shipwrecks, sieges and slavery and battled with pirates, escaped convicts and hostile natives.
They were real heroes of their time.
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Date of Birth - 1798
Don worked his father’s nursery gardens, followed by positions in nurseries in Edinburgh (Messers Dicksons) and London (The Portman). He eventually became foreman at Chelsea Botanical Garden under William Anderson. In 1822, aged 23, he was chosen by the Horticultural Society of London to “hunt for plants in three continents and scour the islands in between”. He set sail in HMS Iphigenia with Captain Sabine (who also coached David Douglas in surveying) to the tropical African Coast. The itinerary included 14 months collecting in 6 different countries in the ‘white man’s grave’ on the west coast of Africa, in 6 of the main islands of the Atlantic and to land at four places on the Brazilian seaboard and Manhattan Island, N. America before returning home.
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Read more... [George Don]
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Date of Birth - 1873
From an early age Forrest was attracted to wild places. He spent a lot of time on the hills and moors near his home in Kilmarnock. Leaving school he worked as a chemist, handling dried plants used in herbal cures, this gave him a little medical knowledge. He used a small inheritance to travel to Australia in 1891 where he worked in goldfields and spent some time on a sheep station.
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Read more... [George Forrest]
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