Pages 5-9 of John Damper Parks' journal and notes: Copy of a letter from John Parks [to Joseph Sabine, secretary of the Horticultural Society of London]
Information
Title - Pages 5-9 of John Damper Parks' journal and notes: Copy of a letter from John Parks [to Joseph Sabine, secretary of the Horticultural Society of London]
Record type - Archive
Original Reference - RHS/Col/4/1/4
Date - 20 Nov 1823
Scope & content - Pages 5-9: Copy of a letter written from Canton [Guangzhou, China]
This item is bound in the volume comprising journal and notes of John Damper Parks
Marked 'letter 2nd'
He will not write about 'the disasters that happened', expecting Sabine to have received his previous letter; he lists the plants which survived the journey to Macao [Macau]: 'I conjecture you kept a duplicate list what I took out with me, therefore I give the numbers of those safe arrived & in good state', but 'some person stole No 1 after being potted'; they have plenty of mint in Macao, and do not need sea kale or currants, as they cannot grow them; Mr Reeves [John Reeves, East India Company tea inspector and naturalist in China] says 'there is but little probability getting new sorts Enkianthus'; Reeves knows nothing of Rhododendron species, and does not know where Mr Potts [John Potts, Horticultural Society plant collector, who travelled to China in 1821-1822 and died in 1822] received his information from, but he may have meant dwarf Azalea, instead of Rhododendron; he has a good stock of Azalea variegata, one with beautiful carnation-like blooms: 'I hope you will see it in England, but no one gives me any hopes of getting it home as so many have tried & failed in the attempt'; he has the double yellow Rosa banksia [Rosa banksiae] and the double yellow 'China rose'; the latter in flower is 'merely a semi-double, sulphur-coloured'; it has been difficult to judge the beauty of wild plants, as so few are in blossom in the autumn; Reeves suggested collecting 'anything there was any chance for being new'; he has double red Azalea, two double purples and a single white, which Mr Brooks [?Samuel Brookes, gardener and nurseryman in Ball's Pond, Islington, London] has; he has a Camellia, rare in Canton, of which he thinks there is one plant in England, at Mr Palmer's at Bromley [Thomas Palmer, gardener and nurseryman in Bromley, Kent]; he went to see Palmer's plant before he left England, as it was reported to have been the double yellow, but now he has seen a drawing at Reeves' [John Reeves commissioned botanical drawings from local artists], and it is 'a semi-double red, it's very different in appearance, foliage and habit, quite conspicuous from any other. The Chinese call it shocq tcha'; he has the semi-double white and Camellia oleifera; Mr Beale [Thomas Beale, naturalist, merchant and opium speculator in Macao] has a new Camellia sasanqua, but lost the plant he grafted from the Horticultural Society in a fire in Canton; he received about 24 plants from Beale, and has collected many in the wild; as so few are in bloom, he has made a selection based on differences in foliage, 'as a chance, with hopes it may prove worth the speculation'; he has many Nepenthes, and the Hoya Sabine requested, although it 'has not had time to root much'; the time of year is not good for rooting plants, and many will 'not be fit to bring away'; Captain Biden [Christopher Biden, captain of HCS Royal George] offered to take plants to England, but as he appeared to know little about plants, 'we considered it the best plan not to send our best plants by his ship'; Reeves suggested sending a case of the hardiest wild plants; he will send a case of Camellia from the province of Fo-Kien [Fujian, China] with Captain Hine [John Hine, captain of HCS Bombay], although there are probably no new plants among them; Hine promised to transport them in a cabin, and they planted all the 16 plants in a case; the case is the first one made by the carpenter [McPherson] and he 'did not make it as desired'; Reeves suggested dividing dried plants from Prince Wales' Island [Pulo Penang, Malaysia] into three parcels, but they were not able to devise a way of numbering them, as they did not have a list and did not know how they were arranged, so he 'endeavoured to imitate' any mark he could see, marking the outside with a cross where there was no mark or number; one of the boxes is sent on HCS Bombay, one on HCS Royal George and one on HCS General Kyd; he received two cases of plants, mainly mangosteens, with the dried specimens; these plants were planted 'very thick together', and they re-potted them with Reeves; among the plants were two possible Artocarpus incisa [?Artocarpus altilis], 'which I fear are dead', even though they had been dug up as seedlings with long tap roots; he is considering taking them himself to England, but Beale does not think he will be successful; Beale has never been able to grow any plants from the Straits [Sunda Strait, Java Strait] in Macao, 'as they are particularly tender'; he is keeping the plants in cases to protect them from cold; the cases also contained pineapples with crowns and suckers, densely planted together, without roots and so wet they were rotting; he dried and replanted them in the same case, and there seem to be two kinds, about half of them striped queen, common in England; these plants and specimens arrived at Macao on 18 Sep on HCS General Kyd; he left the plants he collected at Macao for Beale to send to Canton by boat, and some arrived on 2 Nov; he has now about 80 different kinds of seeds, specimens in spirits, fruits, dried specimens and a 'good many' pots of wild plants without names; he understands from his instructions that Sabine wishes him to send a duplicate of his previous letter, in case he did not receive the first one, and he has sent a duplicate of the first letter from Sunda Strait or Java Head [Tanjung Layar, Java]; 'Sir, it's the greatest pleasure possibly can be that I have no complaints to make this time'; he is very pleased with Reeves, with whom he has been staying and who has been very attentive and respectful: 'indeed I may say with propriety I have received more favours as a stranger to Mr Reeves than I ever did from any gentleman in my life - and I shall for ever feel myself bound in duty to serve him on all and any occasions, what ever it may be'; as he said in his previous letter, he has changed the method of making the plant cases; as glass is scarce at the moment in China, he has had them glazed with transparent oyster shells; the plants are to be kept on the poop [poop deck], under the driver boom, where height is restricted; in order to prevent salt water from getting in the cases ('from washing decks etc'), he put them on three-inch-high cleats, and inserted false bottoms; he will not bring any of his old cases back, as they were not fit for the purpose, and the new ones are much lighter; the previous day four cases of plants arrived from Macao, where they had been brought by HSC Hythe from Prince Wales' Island [Pulo Penang, Malaysia], with seedling plants dug up with earth and with long tap roots; from his experience with the previous plants, he will not pot them, but send them as they are, although he will have to have the cases made higher, with glazed shutters instead of wooden ones to admit light; he is enclosing a letter to his wife for Sabine to post [enclosure not present]; he has sent a list of the plants that arrived the previous day
Extent - 5 pages
Repository - Royal Horticultural Society Lindley Library
Copyright - Royal Horticultural Society
Credit Line - RHS Lindley Collections
Usage terms - Non-commercial use with attribution permitted (CC BY-NC 4.0)