B0232 – In the Footsteps of Augustine Henry

Plantejægerne i Kina. I fodsporene på plantejægeren Augustine Henry (1857-1930) og hans kinesiske indsamlere. Derudover beskrivelse af O’Brian’s ekspeditioner og fund i Henry’s fodspor i 2001.

Augustine Henry was by no means the first European to explore for plants in China, but it is the sheerscale of his collecting that sets him apart: in the last two decades of the19th century, while working for the Chinese Imperial Maritime Custom’s Service, he collected and prepared some 158.050 dried specimens, representing more than 6000 distinct species – of which, over 1.726 were new to science. Today, his remains the largest single collection ever made by a plant hunter in China, and, through it, he has contributed immesurably to our knowledge of an immensely rich, though thretened flora.

More than a century later, Seamus O’brian led three expeditions to China and Taiwan in order to travel ” in the footsteps of Augustine Henry”revisiting his old haunts, searching for plants he first made known to the west and, ultimately, writing a comprehensive account of Henry’s plant exploits in China. Here, Seamus interwaves an amply illustrated descriptionns, diary entries, and proffesional and personal correspondence – of the travels and discoveries of Ireland’s greatest plant explorer with details of his own experiences of revisiting those hallowed places and reliving the excitement of finding plants first collected in the same locations by “the master”.

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