We have a very special lecture for our meeting of November 21st – two speakers instead of one, but working together to give us a comprehensive picture of the ‘The Expedition to the Dulong Jiang, NW Yunnan, 2001’. How the two speakers will choreograph their lecture is up to them. Perhaps we will see a Pierre Trudeau pirouette or two. Steve Hootman and Peter Wharton are both familiar to VRS members; both have lectured to us several times, for the simple reasons that they are both excellent speakers and that they do fascinating things. This time they did it together, exploring for plants in a particularly botanically rich area of China last year. Their talk, then, will give us an account of that expedition from their two perspectives, giving VRS members a unique opportunity vicariously, and comfortably, to share their experience.

For the benefit of new members, Steve Hootman is Co-Director of the Rhododendron Species Foundation in Federal Way, Washington. In this role he, with his Co-Director Rick Peterson, has transformed the garden to by far the best state it has been in since its inception. Moreover, Steve has also undertaken several trips to China, often with Peter and Kenneth Cox, exploring for new plants, re-collecting species that are already in cultivation, thereby increasing the gene pool and introducing new forms, but also discovering species entirely new to horticulture. Also for the benefit of newer members, and as I have written before, I should mention that such expeditions not only provide our gardens with beautiful new plants, but also contribute to the conservation of the species in their dissemination among gardeners, when they might otherwise be brought to extinction by destruction of their natural habitats. All the plant material collected by Steve for the Rhododendron Species Foundation is propagated and the resulting plants eventually offered for sale. At the same time, especially beautiful clones of more familiar species are vegetatively propagated and distributed in a like manner. Steve is also an active member on the Executive of the Seattle Rhododendron Society, a chapter of the ARS and our Seattle counterpart.

 Peter Wharton, Curator of the Asian Garden at the UBC Botanical Garden, is at the centre of the great success of the Asian Garden, and has played a crucial role in giving the garden the international reputation it has acquired, and on which it is constantly building. Like Steve, Peter has engaged in several expeditions, exploring in Asia for new plants. Plants are now entering our gardens under both their collection numbers, which is good for conservation and for the advancement of botanical and horticultural knowledge, as well as being a boon to our gardens. The expedition to China in 2001 is the first that Steve and Peter have embarked upon together, though they have cooperated with each other and shared plant material for many years. In fact, the history of the two gardens is closely intertwined in that the first cuttings brought from England to start the Species Foundation collection were propagated by Evelyn Jack (now Evelyn Weesjes, and a life member of the VRS) at a relatively young UBC Botanical Garden. The results were shared by the two gardens. Many VRS members will remember Peter’s guiding us on that lovely, rainy, walk through the Asian Garden last May.

 As I have mentioned in the past, the primary values of Steve’s and Peter’s lectures, and of others on similar subjects, is to provide us with a view of the plants’ natural habitats and thereby clues as to how we should use them in our gardens, and also to share with us vicariously the very exciting experience of the expeditions themselves, so we get a sense not only of the plants, but of their human and geographical contexts as well. And we have this experience comfortably, without the exhausting treks, the wet and the cold, the leeches, and the bad, or nonexistent, plumbing!

Hootman and Wharton