Horticulture: Biography

Constantine Samuel Rafinesque was a quintessential nineteenth-century American scientist and naturalist. Exalted by some, cursed by others, Rafinesque gave Latin names to over 6,700 plant species, was acknowledged by Darwin for his early insights into biological variation, and is frequently mentioned in the great natural history archives. Yet he has been almost forgotten in our own day. During his long career, which included some five years as an innovative professor at Transylvania University in Kentucky, Rafinesque's colorful and sometimes difficult personality led to troubles with his colleagues. In Constantine Samuel Rafinesque, the first full-length biography of this brilliant, original, and misunderstood naturalist, Leonard Warren presents a fair and surprising look at Rafinesque's life and contributions to the world of science.

This exhilarating book interweaves the stories of two early twentieth-century botanists to explore the collaborative relationships each formed with Yunnan villagers in gathering botanical specimens from the borderlands between China, Tibet, and Burma. Erik Mueggler introduces Scottish botanist George Forrest, who employed Naxi adventurers in his fieldwork from 1906 until his death in 1932. We also meet American Joseph Francis Charles Rock, who, in 1924, undertook a dangerous expedition to Gansu and Tibet with the sons and nephews of Forrest's workers. Mueggler describes how the Naxi workers and their Western employers rendered the earth into specimens, notes, maps, diaries, letters, books, photographs, and ritual manuscripts. Drawing on an ancient metaphor of the earth as a book, Mueggler provides a sustained meditation on what can be copied, translated, and revised and what can be folded back into the earth.

Charles Christopher Parry (1823-1890) is well known to botanists worldwide. More than eighty new species of flowering plants were named from Parry's Colorado collection, and many more from his collections in Mexico and the American Southwest. Fascinated with mountains, Parry made barometric observations that permitted the first accurate estimations of the high peaks. Yet his greatest contribution to science was through the distribution of his botanical collections to the museums of the world. King of Colorado Botany combines the lists of Parry's collections with the scientific and semipopular descriptions of his travels, up until now found only scattered in rare periodicals and old newspapers. This is a work that will be of interest to naturalists and all others interested in the West during Parry's lifetime.