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DID YOU KNOW?
FACTS & FICTION WITH A MEXICAN TWIST
OCTOBER 2008Did you know that...
...many common garden flowers were developed from samples collected in Mexico by a German botanist financed by Britain's Horticultural Society? By Tony Burton Copyright © 2008
Karl Theodor Hartweg (1812-1871) came from a long line of gardeners and had gardening in his genes. Born in Karlsruhe, Germany, on June 18, 1812, he worked in Paris, at the Jardin des Plantes, before moving to England to work in the U.K. Horticultural Society's Chiswick gardens in London. Keen to travel even further afield, he was appointed an official plant hunter and sent to the Americas for the first time in 1836. What was originally intended to be a three-year project eventually became a 7-year expedition.By Hartweg's time, Europeans already knew that Mexico was a veritable botanical treasure trove, full of exciting new plants. For example, the humble dahlia, a Mexican native since elevated to the status of the nation's official flower, had already become very prominent in Europe.
Mexican cacti were also beginning to acquire popularity in Europe at this time.
The Horticultural Society saw both academic and financial potential in sponsoring Hartweg to explore remote areas of Mexico, and collect plants that might flourish in temperature climes such as north-west Europe.
And Hartweg was certainly the man for the job. He proved to be an especially determined traveler, who covered a vast territory in search of new plants. He collected representative samples and seeds of hundreds and hundreds of species, many of which had not previously been scientifically named or described. Orchids from the Americas were particularly popular in Hartweg's day... Shortly after arriving in Veracruz in 1836, Hartweg met a fellow botanist, Carl Sartorius (1796-1872), of German extraction, who had acquired the nearby hacienda of El Mirador a decade eariler. Sartorius collected plants for the Berlin Botanical Gardens. His hacienda, producing sugar-cane, set in the coastal, tropical lowlands, became the mecca of nineteenth century botanists visiting Mexico. See, for example, two earlier columns in this series: Did you know that... a young Belgian botanist established a business exporting Mexican cacti to Europe back in the 1840s? and Did you know that... scientists first explored El Pico de Orizaba, Mexico's highest peak, as long ago as 1838?
The world of plant collecting in those days was a relatively small world...
Read the complete article . . .
Did You Know Index
Text © Copyright 2008 by Tony Burton. All rights reserved.
- - - Sombrero Books Page
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