The early years of the 20th century call to mind collectors such as George Forrest but there were also others who travelled abroad, mainly in Europe, to bring back plants. One of the most colourful was that outstanding plantsman Peter Barr from Govan who had such a passion for narcissi that he earned the title of “Daffodil King”. Most of his career was at the end of the 19th century but he continued into the 20th. He travelled in search of species of Narcissus in France, Spain and Portugal and, in a way we think remiss today, brought home sackfuls of bulbs, often lamenting that in some areas the bulb population was somewhat denuded. At the age of 81 he developed a passion for primulas and built up a collection of several thousand plants.
Lyn Bezzant established a rock garden in Bearsden, Glasgow before moving in the 1980s to the Lake of Menteith in Perthshire where she specialised in dwarf shrubs, especially Ericaceae and also dwarf bulbs, especially crocus. She also regularly hunted for plants in southern Europe.
Thomas Blaikie was a botanical collector and landscape gardener active in the late-18th and early-19th centuries. He was born in 1750 near Edinburgh, Scotland yet he spent much of his career abroad collecting plants in France and Switzerland. In 1776, he entered the landcape gardening profession, and began working in France in 'le jardin anglais' style. He died in Paris in 1838.
Thomas Blaikie, Alpine Plant Collector
[Article by Forbes W Robertson Journal of the Scottish Rock Garden Club Jan 1997, No: 99, p121-134.]
The 18th century witnessed a remarkable emigration of Scottish gardeners to England where they carved out successful careers as head gardeners, nurserymen or seedsmen. Some went further afield like Thomas Blaikie, who spent most of his life in France, where he won a respectable place in French garden history designing ‘jardins anglais’ for aristocrats and hobnobbing with royalty. But it is not that part of his career which is our present concern. Before he moved permanently to France he was commissioned by two physicians, who were also devoted gardeners, to travel to Switzerland for the purpose of collecting mountain p1ants.He was the first professional alpine plant collector.
His employers were Dr. John Fothergill, a Yorkshire Quaker, with probably the finest private garden in the country, and Dr William Pitcairn a distinguished Scots physician and former private tutor to James, 6th Duke of Hamilton.
EARLY DAYS
Blaikie was born in 1750 at Corstorphine, Edinburgh, where his family had a small estate of around two hectares. As usual, nothing is known of his early life, his education nor where he learned to be a gardener. He was certainly well educated, a sound botanist, who used the Linnaean names for plants and, quite early in his career, was on familiar terms with the leading nurserymen and botanists of the day, including Sir Joseph Banks. But, from the age of 25 onwards, his life is well documented since he left a diary which was edited and published in 1931 by Francis Birrell under the title “Diary of a Scotch gardener at the French court at the end of the 18th century”.
HIS ALPINE TRIP
The account of his alpine trip is particularly detailed and reveals him as a man of lively curiosity with a discerning eye for both landscape and the people he met. He left London on 15 April 1775 and travelled first to Paris, where he took time off to look around the city and remarked on the hazards of going on foot in the narrow streets, which were crowded with coaches driven at great speed. At Lyons he visited the Anatomy School. He reached Geneva on 4 May where his first task was to present his letter of introduction from Dr. Pitcairn to Paul Gaussen, who had a number of rare trees on his estate at Bourdigny near Geneva, including the first female
Gingko biloba known in Europe. Blaikie was relieved that Gaussen spoke good English for he had been greatly frustrated so far by his inability to converse with the people he encountered on his journey.
This handicap did not last long because Blaikie quickly learned to speak French and later became so fluent and familiar with French ways to pass for a native. Gaussen was very helpful and provided Blaikie with a plot of ground in his garden, where he could plant out the specimens he collected on his forays into the mountains. He
also acquired another plot near Geneva at St Genis for a similar purpose. Throughout his stay he regularly visited these sites to add to his collection and look after and propagate his plants.
THE JURA MOUNTAINS
He began his expedition by spending five days exploring the nearest mountains of the Jura where he immediately came across his first specimens of Dryas octopetala, Arctostaphylos uva-ursi, Erinus alpinus, Viola calcarata and Gentiana verna and acaulis which he found “so beautiful to be beyond description”. On 22 May he met a local bookseller, one of the Gosses, originally from Holland, who was “exceedingly curious in Botany”. The following day Gosse took him to meet the eminent Horace Benedict de Saussure, scientist, traveller and mountaineer, later to climb Mt. Blanc in 1787. De Saussure had amassed a large collection of herbarium specimens of the alpine flora and was able to give Blaikie good advice as to the richest areas to visit.
MONT SALEVE
After the Jura he turned his attention to Mont Saléve and vicinity, the nearest mountains south of Geneva. After several days there he was back in the Jura on the north side where he found Pinguicula alpina and masses of Cypripedium in a wood. As the snow was now melting he planned to go further afield, found a guide and made for St. Cergue and the upland pastures where the cows were taken for the summer. Here he met up with a group of cowherds who supplied him with good milk and cream and a bed of spruce branches for the night. He climbed Mt Dole and, like innumerable successors, admired the “most noble and stately vue of the other hills and over the Lack of Geneva to Savoy". (Eighteenth century spelling was subject to few constraints.) Here he found large numbers of Rhododendron ferrugineum, Vaccinium uliginosum, and Tozzia alpina in the woods and Andromeda polifolia in boggy places.
CONVIVIAL HOSPITALITY
A couple of days later he returned to his cowherd friends and offered some money in return for their hospitality but they would not take it unless he promised to spend the evening with them to which he readily consented. They had a feast of cream and plenty of wine, which they had bought, so “ this evening was spent very merry in dancing and drinking, one ofthe company played upon the fiddle and the others danced. Ijoined likewise and so we danced all barefooted. I fequently admired the happyness of those people who enjoys more happyness in such a triffeling object as this than the higher class does in there great balls. At last when we was tired and the wine finished we retired to rest upon our beds of spruce branches and hay where we slept comfortably”. This little incident illustrates Blaikie's good natured conviviality and the ease with which he made friends. We know from his later experiences at the French court that he was a popular figure, evidently endowed with plenty of self confidence.
MOUNTAIN HAZARDS
His expeditions into the mountains were not without adventure. While working along a slope he found his way blocked at the edge of a precipice. He managed to find a precarious way down by clinging to bushes but, by the time he had reached safety, he was benighted. However, he found a cave where he made a bed out of tree branches but he slept “but little dreadin the wolves which is common in those woods”. By daybreak he was up searching for plants. A few days later he had another unpleasant experience when he came to the edge of a stream with tempting plants on the other side. He stripped off his clothes, which he tied in a bundle, and started to wade across but when he was halfway “the water was so excessively cold preceding from snow and ice and me warm with walking it soon seezed me up so that with difficulty I gott out of the water and threw myself down upon the moss in the wood unable to put on my clothes. Here I lay almost senseless without any to help me. However, in a little after I found a glowing heat all over me, I soon recovered myself”.
FEEBLE COMPANIONS
Late in June two botanist friends from Geneva joined him to look for plants in the J ura but, a couple of davs later, they were too exhausted to continue and “were heartily sick of the mountains”. That was a familiar experience for Blaikie. Very few could endure the pace he set. He was a seasoned walker who went everywhere on foot and would cover 20 or more miles in a day over rough country, carrying a heavy box of plants. As a consequence he had no luck with guides who quickly refused to go with him any further into the mountains. He had a low opinion of the stamina of those who went out with him, including Michel Gabriel Paccard who was the first man to ascend Mt. Blanc in 1786. Blaikie thought he tired easily!
Indeed the only men who won his respect as suitable companions for a walk in the mountains were Abraham Thomas, a cowherd who knew his plants, and his father, then about 80, who had travelled through the mountains collecting plants for the eminent Swiss botanist Albrecht von Haller, author of ‘Enumeratio Stirpium Helveticarum’ which Blaikie used for numbering the species he collected. Both these men kept pace with Blaikie who considered them the only two people he had met “that is worth traveling upon the mountains”.
On 24 June he was looking after his plants at St.Genis when he had a visit from Voltaire who appeared suitably impressed by the collection. Voltaire was then 81, tall and thin, still actively writing and living in a chateau near Geneva.
FURTHER AFIELD
By the middle of July Blaikie felt he had exhausted the Jura and Saleve mountains, easily accessible from Geneva and prepared for a longer trip into fresh hunting grounds. Walking from Geneva he went by the south side of the lake to Thonon, which he thought a rather poor little town and then on to Evian. From there he walked into the mountains south of Evian and encountered his first Chamois, which interested him greatly. A couple of days later his guide refused to go further into the mountains, so they came down and parted company. The following day Blaikie walked on to Bex in the Valais. On 26 July he was introduced to Abraham Thomas, the botanist cowherd who acted as guide on their botanising walk to Sion, where Blaikie commented on the number of inhabitants, especially women, with goitre. The following day he came across Opuntia in flower and fruit.
HOSTILE NATIVES
He walked on to Kaidersteg which was in a German speaking area and engaged another guide who proved a disaster. They had not gone very far when he refused to go further into the mountains and left Blaikie. But a little later this fellow rushed out of a thicket followed by a near naked man with a long beard, carrying an axe.
They threatened Blaikie in German but he ignored them and went on his way, both parties shaking their fists at the other.This incident had a sequel. When he got back to the inn where he was staying he was welcomed by the landlord. The guide then appeared and Blaikie became angry at his former behaviour. But he was outdone by the landlord who knocked the guide down and Blaikie had to intervene to save him from suffering possibly fatal injury. He later learnt that this same man had returned to the inn in his absence and tried to steal his belongings, but the landlord had kicked him out.
Blaikie was now travelling in the direction of Berne. On the way, in the vicinity of Grindelwald, he found Pyrola uniflora and the coral root orchid, whose roots he found so brittle that it was almost impossible to transplant this species. But what really amazed and fascinated him were the glaciers. The first one he encountered had “large cracks running all across of a prodigious depth”. He wanted to cross it but his guide, in this case rather wisely, would hear none of it. Blaikie was “exceeding sorry to quitte this place and was almost determined to go by myself”.
THE LINNAEAN SYSTEM
At Berne he had hoped to meet Dr Haller but he was ill in bed. However, he met Dr Abraham Gagnebin, a colleague of Haller's. and together they botanised in the district for several days. Blaikie then headed back towards Geneva via Joux, Ballens and Aubonne where he met a “curiouss Gentleman who pretends to be a great Botanist” and who had inspected his plants at St Genis. His father had belonged to the Royal Society of London and had a plant, Garcinia, named after him by Linnaeus. The preceding plant in the list was Blakea, at which M. Garcin asked if it was not named after Blaikie‘s father to which the latter replied “surement” so “we concluded we was very nearly related in the Linnaean System and so we must go together to the Mountains and spend a day or two”. However, Blaikie had found several species on the Dole which had escaped M. Garcin.
CHAMONIX AND MONT BLANC
A few days later he set out for Chamonix which he reached at the end of August. He had a letter of introduction to M.Paccard, the Public Notary of the town, and father of three sons, two of whom acted as guides to the area round Chamonix. With them he explored the slopes of Mt. Blanc and the glaciers, about which he found some species new to him, including Saxifraga bryoides, Veronica alpinus, Ranunculus glacialis, R. acom‘tz’folius, Artemisia genipi to mention a few. He wanted to go higher up the mountain but his “compagnon” was almost tired out, as usual, and would go no further, so as there were no plants to be seen at that height, he consented to return to Chamonix. By 5 September, having combed the Chamonix district and collected seeds from beside the glaciers, he arranged to have a box made to send back his large collection to Geneva. He decided to return to Geneva directly through the mountains, a long, arduous and unexpectedly perilous route in the hopes of finding more plants.
STRANDED AGAIN
The very first night of his journey back he once more found himself stranded at nightfall in a precipitous place. He had to spend the night on an improvised bed of rhododendron but he could not sleep for the cold and the whistling of the marmots. At daybreak he left the “Hottle de la Roche” and soon found Onosma echioides, Campanula barbata, a species of Hedysarum probably obscurum, Astragalus alpina etc. He toiled on and towards evening saw some huts two miles away — “the most agreeable sight I had seen for this two days”. He hastened there and found only women occupying the huts, one of whom gave him milk and told him it was eight hours walk and no road to the nearest habitation, so he spent the night there on a hay bed. The following morning, after curds and cream, the kindly lady pointed out the direction he should go but he got confused and was set right again by a man he met. Eventually he reached a village called Thonnage about seven in the
evening and went to the Signe de la Croix Blanche where he ordered supper and wine.
A NARROW ESCAPE
But it was not long before two men came in and proceeded to question him in a way he did not like, while a crowd gathered at the door. One of the men went outside to speak to the crowd while the other, who appeared friendly, told him he should get out of the place as quickly as possible to avoid the chance of being murdered.
He would not believe he came from Geneva but was convinced he was from Germany, to which he was well disposed, and therefore hoped Blaikie would escape the fate of two Germans a few days earlier. Blaikie was understandably mystified by all this and did not know what to make of this mob outside armed with sticks. He could not venture out and had his doubts about the man who gave him this alarming information. So he decided to stay there that night and defend himself as long as he could. He had supper and shared a bottle of wine with the apparently friendly adviser.The people of the house would have been glad to see him outside for they were afraid the mob would set the house alight. After supper his companion left and the mob went with him. After paying for his supper he was shown to a sort of “hogstie” where he was to spend the night. But as soon as possible he made for the protection of the wood and headed for the mountains. After hurrying upward through the night he reached a steep rock from where he could look back at the village and saw, to his horror, the mob of people, armed with sticks and pitchforks setting alight the cabin where they thought he was sleeping. “This scene made me think of getting off as fast as I could from this bloody place although the night was dark and the road through a thick wood; I continually keeped upwards until at last I got clear of the wood and near the top of the mountain; here I could see better although I did not know which way to take before light because of the precipices, as soon as day-break I saw by the sky the position of the Mountains which run east and west, so I steered east and keeped clear of all villages during this whole day; in the evening found some hutts where I lodged however always in doubt”. The next day he was back in familiar territory where he learned that his informant at the village had told the truth and that two people had recently been killed there “under pretext of Religion” and that it was a miracle that he had escaped alive. So much for travel in 18th century Switzerland.
LAST LAP
By now the season was well advanced and most of the species he had collected were in seed which he gathered. By 4 October he was travelling south towards the east end of Lake Geneva and on 10 October he met up with his friend Abraham Thomas and persuaded him to accompany him to find replacements for many plants he had previously collected but which had died. He found many of them and collected a great deal of seed.
By mid-October he was back at Bourdigny putting his collection in order. Not surprisingly, in spite of collecting duplicates, not all the species were still represented and Blaikie was anxious to replace them, so 25 October found him back on the Jura struggling through the snow in search of the plants he remembered from his earlier trips. He was out again the next day and found the going difficult over snow—covered rocks. The wind was so strong that he found it difficult to hang on to bushes to guard against slipping. He was almost overcome by cold and wind at the top of the mountain but managed to gain the shelter of a deserted summer hut where he lighted a fire with his pistol and spent “a very desagreable night”.
He was certainly conscientious for he continued along the mountain finding many of the plants he was looking for and finally returned to St. Genis in the evening. Most of November was taken up with cataloguing and packing up his plant collection and on 27 November, after breakfasting with Paul Gaussen for the last time, he set off for London which he reached on 31 December. After having spent so many nights in miserable alpine huts on strawbeds or in the very indifferent French hotels he revelled in the cleanliness and comfort of an English tap room.
HIS COLLECTIONS
So much for the bare bones of his expedition. But what of the plants he found? His list of plants dispatched from Bourdigny for Drs Fothergill and Pitcairn included well over 400 species. In most cases each species was represented by more than one and sometimes as many as 30-40 specimens either of individual plants, tufts or cuttings of willows etc. We know he sent back a great deal of seed although he does not list the species. His plants were all numbered according to Haller‘s scheme and given their Linnaean name. His collection was fully representative of the alpine meadows, screes and rocky places of the Alps he visited. It was comprehensive and included species of Juncus, Carex, Cyperus, Lycopodium and a few grasses. He kept an eye open for variation and included in his collection albino varieties of Prunella laciniata, Erinus alpinus, Onom's spinosa, Verbascum lychnitis, Gentiana verna etc. He collected nominally 18 species of Hieracium, according to Haller‘s classification and 23 different orchids. Only the rarer high mountain species are missing. Blaikie never received formal recognition for the species he introduced. In William Aiton's Hortus Kewensis (1779) there are 22 entries of species whose introduction in 1775 is attributed to Drs Pitcairn and Fothergill. All are listed as natives of Switzerland and sometimes France or Italy as well. There is no doubt these were all Blaikie's plants so he deserves formal, if belated, recognition for their introduction. In the table below the first name is the one in Aiton’s Hortus. ln several instances the original name has dropped out of use due to
taxonomic changes of one kind or another. Where known, the present name , or at least, a later more accessible synonym, has been added in brackets.
The list is as follows:
Achillea atrata L.
Achillea moschata Wulfen
Ajuga alpina L. (A. genevensis var arida Briquet)
Aretia ( Androsace ) helvetica L.
Aretia ( Androsace ) helvetica L.
Carduus rigens L. ( Cnicus x rigens Wallr,)
Cineraria cordzfolia L.(Seneci0 alpinus Scop. var cordifolz'us DC) Erigeron
um'florum L.
Gentiana bavarica L.
Gentiana punctata L.
Geranium acutifolium L. ( G. rivulare Villars.)
Hieracium porrifolium L. (H. wilderzowii Monnier)
Gnaphalium alpinum L. ( G. carpaticum Wengb.)
Hypochaeris pontana L. ( Soyerz‘a montana Monn.)
Laserpltium lucidum L. ( 7 L. gallicum L. var )
Lepidt'um alpinum L. ( Hutchinsia alpina R. Br.)
Poa gerardi L. ( Festuca spadicea L.)
Polygala amara L.
Senecio nemorensis L.
Saxifraga bryoides L. ( S. aspera, ssp. bryoides D. C. )
Veronica aphylla L.
Veronica bellidioides L.
Many of the other garden worthy species Blaikie collected had already been introduced, often by de Saussure or “cultivated by Philip Miller”, according to Aiton's Hortus. Nonetheless Blaikie should be remembered in the annals of rock gardening, not only for his introductions, but also for his engaging character and tireless energy in the search for alpine plants.
Edinburgh Zoo has a rich horticultural tradition. Before its inception in 1913, the site was a nursery, once owned by Thomas Blaikie, who planted many of the great French parks such as ‘La Bagatelle’. It was on this site that two nurserymen raised the famous apple cultivars ‘John Downie’ and ‘James Grieve’.
Before 1913, part of the site was a nursery, once owned by Thomas Blaikie, a famous plantsman who planted some of the great French parks such as La Bagatelle. On this site two nurserymen raised the apple cultivars John Downie and James Grieve. There is a small memorial to Blaikie to the west of
the pygmy hippo enclosure.
References
Aiton, W. 1779, Hortus Kewensis.
Birrell, F. 1931, Diary of a Scotch Gardener at the French Court at
the end of the eighteenth century, London, Routledge.
Bonnier, G. 1911 - 1934 Flore Complete illustre'e en couleurs de
France, Suisse et Belgique. 12 vol.
Rouy, G. & Foucaud,, J. 1893, Flore de France.
The above article is available in the SRGC Journal archive on this website.
Of Faldonside, Melrose. He was a 19th century amateur gardener.
See Obituary of his daughter Jessie in SRGC Journal Vol 30 1962 which mentions much more.
Squadron-Leader John Boyd-Harvey and his wife Christina lived at Boonslie on the coast of East Lothian outside Edinburgh. He was Secretary of the Club from 1951 until just before his death in 1966 and was followed by his wife who took over and remained in post until she died in 1974. In the late 1920's and 30's they were International Motor Cycle drivers and it was in the course of their driving trips in Europe that they developed their interest in plants and gardens.
After the Second World War they established a fine garden at Boonslie well endowed with interesting plants and shrubs, many of them raised from seed by Mrs Boyd-Harvey who was also noted for her impressive pans of cyclamen at Shows, especially C. hederifolium. The Boyd-Harveys also grew many plants collected by Ruth Tweedie in Patagonia such as Oxalis laciniata.
They contributed a great deal to the Club and were assiduous in writing articles and giving lectures.
Perhaps the greatest Scottish rock gardener in the early part of the 20th century was William (Willie) Buchanan, a farmer at Garscadden Mains near Glasgow. Not many farmers have been renowned as gardeners, which makes him especially notable. When his farm was bought for housing he moved to Bearsden, Glasgow where he created a second wonderful garden. As early as 1910, when he was aged only about 20, he became excited by the plant
introductions of Farrer, Forrest and Kingdon Ward and was soon growing them at Garscadden. He was particularly friendly with Farrer who visited him at the farm, while Buchanan contributed to Farrer’s 1913-14 expedition. By the time the seeds arrived he was away in the army so his sister sowed them and grew the plants on until he returned home. He also grew plants from Sherriff’s expeditions and was one of the few to be successful with Saxifraga sherrifiii. Buchanan donated a photograph of it to the SRGC slide library where it still exits. Ludlow publicly acknowledged Buchanan’s skill as a grower of Himalayan rarities.
Buchanan was one of those master growers and propagators who seemed to be successful with anything which took his fancy. He had truly catholic tastes and would grow anything he reckoned was a good garden plant, except that he was reputed to detest lewisias and refused to grow them. He was especially successful with ericaceous species and raised a number of hybrids such as Daboecia x scotica ‘William Buchanan’ and 'William Buchanan Gold’ as well as Pieris japonica ‘William Buchanan’ and Astilbe “William Buchanan’. Jack Drake's Inchriach nursery helped to develop Buchanan’s Daboecia hybrids, one of which was named ‘Jack Drake’. Although a stern judge at Shows he rarely exhibited but was always ready to show his garden to other growers and was most generous in giving plants to visitors. He corresponded widely and was altogether a man ahead of his times in rock gardening.
The William Buchanan Lecture on the topic of growing plants was established in his honour at the SRGC Discussion Weekend. He continued his long career as a grower until he died in 1963. It is a pity that he was so reluctant to commit his knowledge to paper. But his collection of slides, mostly taken by Professor Pontecorvo, formerly of the Genetics Dept. of the University of Glasgow and an enthusiastic alpine gardener were part of the SRGC Slide Collection.
Bulley was a businessman, botanist and natural historian active in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. He was born in Cheshire, England in 1861 and educated at Marlborough College.
Bulley entered the family business of cotton brokerage in Liverpool, England in the late-19th century and retired in 1922. In 1898, he began making a garden at nearby Ness, which he opened to the public.
In the early-20th century, Bulley started a commercial nursery, which later developed into a plant and seed company, Bees Limited, in part of his garden, and, in 1912, he took on John Hope, a foreman of the Edinburgh Botanic Garden, Scotland as head gardener.
Interested particularly in the cultivation and preservation of rare plants from the Far East, Bulley employed several plant collectors, such as George Forrest, Francis Kingdon Ward, and R.E. Cooper, to obtain them for him. Under his patronage, Forrest and Kingdon Ward were sent to Western China and Cooper to Sikkim and Bhutan.
Bulley died in 1942. Six years later, his house and garden at Ness were given to Liverpool University as a Botanic Garden. It was endowed by his daughter, Miss A.L. Bulley, under the condition that the the public would have continued access. The botanical gardens are still open today, renamed in 1950, as Ness Gardens.
