Davidsonia

Davidsonia - A Journal of Botanical Garden Science

Editor, Iain Taylor writes about the introduction of plants to British Columbia. Many new plants that are brought into the region, come from China and southeast Asia. A new book from the UBC Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant research, The Jade Garden (released June, 2005) highlights new exciting plant discoveries from Asia that are suitable for North American gardens.

Taylor also notes the retirement of Judy Newton, Education Coordinator at UBCBG and author of the monthly Walk in the Garden. This issue contains the last article in the series.

Emigration of Scottish botanists, horticulturists, gardeners and plant collectors, first to England and later to Western Canada and British Columbia, began in the 17th Century and was well established by the mid 18th Century. Forbes Robertson (2000) noted in his book Early Scottish Gardeners that “before long there were so many Scots Gardeners in England that, in the popular mind, a Head Gardener was assumed to be a Scotsman." Hence George Elliot’s comment that "A gardener is Scottish as a French teacher is Parisian.” The distinguished Dutch entomologist and pupil of Linnaeus, John Christian Frabricuis, who was a regular visitor to England from 1767-1791, observed that James Lee, the leading nurseryman, of the time “is a Scot like almost all the seedsmen and gardeners in London. The Scots have established a near monopoly in this occupation to the virtual exclusion of the English and businesses are handed from one Scot to another.”

Retired landscape architect, Clive Justice writes about the nurserymen and plant breeders who developed plants for the British Columbian coastal garden. Environmental conditions in the region are quite distinct from the rest of Canada. The favourable climate allowed the introduction of plants from many other areas of the world and produced many native species that were valuable for development of plant introductions for other areas.

The March installment of Judy Newton's popular series describing what to see at the UBC Botanical Garden each month of the year.

A table of climatological records at the University of British Columbia campus for 2004.

The Editors of Davidsonia highlight some of the most interesting and important titles from the thousands of recently published papers in the plant sciences.

Instructions for authors submitting articles to Davidsonia. (Updated 2005)