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Scottish Plant Hunters
Euan Cox (1893-1977)
Euan Hillhouse Methven Cox was a Scottish plant collector, botanist, and horticulturist, who accompanied Reginald Farrer on his last botanical expedition to Burma and its border with China, from 1919 to 1920. He was a very successful propagator of rhododendrons and had an extensive collection in his garden at Glendoick, Perthshire, Scotland, which formed the basis of his commercial nursery, later run by his son, Peter A. Cox, and grandson, Kenneth N. E. Cox.
Cox was one of the most knowledgeable and experienced horticulturalists of the day who by his writings and example did much to promote the love of gardens and their content. He was born on 19 June 1893 at Westwood, Balthayock, in the Carse of Gowrie, Perthshire. This was about three miles from Glendoick, which became his home and where he laid out and planted a notable garden in which he particularly indulged his deep interest in the genus Rhododendron. He was the only son of Alfred W. Cox (1861–1943), a member of the Cox Brothers firm of jute spinners and manufacturers that owned the Camperdown works, Dundee, and his wife, Helen, née Salmon (1864–1910). He was educated at Cargilfield preparatory school, Edinburgh and Rugby School, Warwickshire, going on to read history at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. Invalided out of the army in the First World War, he went to work as John Buchan's secretary at the Foreign Office for the rest of the war.
Cox's father expected him to return to Dundee after the war to take over running the family jute business. Instead, in 1919, a chance meeting with Reginald Farrer in London changed his life. Cox’s deep interest in plants really developed from his friendship with Reginald Farrer. They met at a tea party in a nursing home where Farrer was convalescing after an operation and then quickly decided to join forces and undertake a collecting expedition to Upper Burma. They used as their base Hpimaw and from March to mid-November 1919 they scoured the country for plants of garden merit. Once the seed harvest had been collected, Cox returned to Britain, leaving his companion to carry on the expedition into the following spring. After Farrer's untimely death, in October 1920, it fell to Cox to sort out and distribute their seed collections.
Several important new plant introductions to Britain resulted, including the rhododendron species R. mallotum; Deutzia calycosa, with white, purple-centred flowers; and Juniperus recurva var. coxii, the Chinese coffin tree, with its blue-green swags of foliage. The latter, named for Cox, proved to be one of the best conifers introduced to Britain during the twentieth century.
Cox had to return home in 1920 but the year spent with Farrer certainly fired the enthusiastic love of plants in Cox which led him to embark on a period of horticultural journalism, a phase which was to contribute significantly to the literature and in which his discerning judgement of plants and ready descriptive pen were given full scope.
In the 1920s Cox opened a bookshop in London, specializing in horticultural and plant hunting books. He also published the first of his own horticultural books, Farrer's Last Journey, in 1926, recounting the story of the expedition. This was followed by The Plant Introductions of Reginald Farrer (1930). He became the gardening editor of Country Life magazine and in 1928 he began editing the magazine New Flora and Silva, which described the new plant introductions flooding into the West from plant hunting expeditions from all over the world. Too highbrow to have mass appeal, it continued until the outbreak of the Second World War, during which the bookshop was bombed, bringing his London interests to a close.
For some years he was Gardening Editor of Country Life, but perhaps his most important contribution to horticultural literature was the founding and editing of The New Flora and Silva. In the first editorial in October 1928 he stated the object of the journal as one that would cater solely for the keen gardener who is ambitious, interested in particular groups of plants and wishing to enlarge his collection and above all for the gardener desiring to learn about the best plants and the best methods of cultivation. This journal appeared under his editorship for ten years and it attracted contributions from authorities on all groups of plants and indeed was used sometimes as a medium for describing new species. Other calls forced him to give up the editorship in 1938 when he handed over to Lady Beatrix Stanley, but it became a war casualty in August 1946. Its demise left a gap in the range of horticultural periodicals which has never been adequately filled. In 1926 Cox published ‘Farrer’s last Journal, a factual account of their expedition in 1919 and in which Cox gives vivid descriptions of the country and the plants they encountered and in which he quotes liberally from Farrer’s letters. In 1930 he published ‘The Plant Introductions of Reginald Farrer’, which is a beautifully produced book and illustrated with watercolour drawings which Farrer had made in the field.
Cox married his second cousin Norah Helen (1903–1988), daughter of Arthur J. Cox, in 1925 and they had two children, Susan (b. 1929) and Peter (b. 1934). The Cox family had long been established in the jute spinning business in Dundee and in 1932 Euan returned north to take charge of the business while at the same time he continued with his journalistic efforts in London.
The Glendoick gardens were neglected during the Second World War. The industry was in terminal decline, with the family firm shrinking fast, and after the sale of the family jute business in 1947 and then Cox was able to devote himself entirely to his garden at Glendoick. As an alternative he augmented his income by writing. His publications included The History of Gardening in Scotland (1938).
After his father's death in 1943 Cox moved his family into Glendoick House, Glencarse, Perthshire, which had been acquired by his parents in 1897. He had started developing the garden at Glendoick from 1921 onwards, clearing a glen where he planted many rhododendrons, primulas, berberis, and viburnums, and which he described in Wild Gardening (1929). Through his friend John Guille Millais (1865–1931), son of the artist, of Compton's Brow, Horsham, and a prominent member of the Rhododendron Society, he secured a lorry load of semi-mature plants from Leonardslee in Sussex, a garden owned by the Loder family and famous for the Loderii hybrids. The collection of Rhododendrons there was started soon after he returned from Burma and indeed one or two plants from the Farrer expedition still survive. Cox frequently went for weekends to Exbury, Tower Court, Leonardslee and Caerhays, all notable Rhododendron Gardens, and, as was the custom, plants were generously exchanged with these Gardens and so Glendoick was greatly enriched from these sources as well as from the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh. He also subscribed to one of George Forrest's later expeditions, receiving plants and seeds from other collectors including George Sherriff. Rhododendrons were purchased from John Barr Stevenson's great collection at Tower Court, Ascot, and magnolias from Veitch of Exeter. New rhododendron hybrids from North America were acquired in the 1950s, including those raised by the Norwegian hybridizer Halfdan Lem.
Cox’s interest in plant exploration in south-eastern Asia culminated in 1945 in the publication of his book ‘Plant Hunting in China’, which is a comprehensive history of botanical exploration in China and the Tibetan marches. For some years he contributed a regular weekly gardening column to The Scotsman.
The rhododendron nursery started on a small scale when Cox's son Peter settled back at Glendoick in 1951 and gradually expanded as other areas of the gardens were given over to rhododendron cultivation. Euan and Peter Cox also collaborated on further books: Modern Rhododendrons (1956), Modern Shrubs (1958), and Modern Trees (1961). Cox was awarded the Royal Horticultural Society's Victoria medal of Honour in 1954 and the Veitch Memorial Medal in 1970 for his work as a plant collector and as an authority on rhododendrons.
Euan Cox was of a modest, retiring disposition and only seemed completely at ease in his garden or when conversing about plants. He died at Glendoick on 26 March 1977 and was buried at Kinfauns churchyard, Perth.
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