The Return to China, Mother of Gardens

In 1929, Ernest Henry Wilson's book China, Mother of Gardens was published, which documented the importance of Chinese plant species to western gardens.Wilson collected plants widely in China between 1899 and 1910.Many of his introductions have become important components of the cultivated flora of our gardens and our cities, and have been used widely in plant hybridization and selection.Wilson's China collections greatly expanded our understanding of the Chinese flora as the richest and most diverse flora in the temperate world and identified the usefulness of many species for cultivation.However, until recently, many of the most important and useful Chinese species in America were the result of limited seed collections, representing only a narrow slice of the genetic diversity and potential of each species.In some cases, all the plants in this country derived from a single plant or a few seedlings.After multiple generations of propagation from seed, symptoms of inbreeding were being observed.Since the 1930s, wars and the political situation in China made it difficult, if not impossible, for western scientists and plant explorers to travel, study, and collect plants in China.However, Chinese botanists were hard at work during this time, cataloguing, describing, and publishing detailed accounts of their flora.With the gradual opening of China following President Nixon's visit in 1972, these publications became more available in western botanical libraries.This new information further documented the richness of the Chinese flora and its potential for further plant exploration, evaluation, and introduction.These data also provided additional information on the natural geographic distribution of species, allowing us to target specific areas for collection in particular parts of their range.By doing so, we could potentially maximize adaptability characteristics such as winter hardiness, heat and drought tolerance, and adaptability to special soil characteristics.