Comments from Mr. PGC: Throughout history, many people have made lasting contributions to the world of plants. In these pages, we hope to pay tribute to some of them. Our concentration will be primarily on those who have introduced plants to the gardening world, those who have helped spread the word about gardening and those who have made significant contributions to landscaping and landscaping design around the world.

This list will be constantly growing as we add new names. If you have someone who you think should be on the list, please send us an Email.

He created the Section of Foreign Seed and Plant Introduction of the United States Department of Agriculture in 1891. For 37 years, he traveled the world in search of plants of potential use to the American people. He brought into cultivation in the U.S. many important plants, including mangos, alfalfa, nectarines, dates, horseradish, bamboos and flowering cherries.

The Fairchild Tropical Botanical Garden in Miami, Florida is named in his honor. He made many trips to Asia to bring plants back for the gardens during the late 1930's.

From 1912 to 1943, Beatrix Farrand acted as the consulting landscape architect for Princeton University. She also worked with campus designs at Yale and the University of Chicago. She was the only woman involved in the creation of the American Society of Landscape Architects. Her designs were used at Dartington Hall and her beautifully documented city garden of Dunbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C.

Forsythia 'Beatrix Farrand' is named in her honor.

Botanical writer and plant-hunter, Farrer was born in London and brought up in Ingleborough where he became interested in rock garden plants. He wrote several books on the subject including My Rock Garden and The English Rock Garden.

He was an avid plant hunter and introduced several species of Primula and Rhododendron. He died on a Burmese mountain at the age of 40.

Plants discovered by him include Daphne tangutica, Buddleja alternifolia, Gentiana farrerii, Cypripedium farrerii and Viburnum farreri.

Her gardens at East Lambrook Manor were the topic of 8 books she wrote in the 1950s and 60s.

Plants named for her include Bergenia 'Margery Fish', Penstemon 'Margery Fish', and Pulmonaria saccharata 'Margery Fish'.

He served as director of the Royal Horticultural Society Garden at Wisley and Keeper of the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh, Scotland.

The specific epithet, fletcheri, is named for him. Plants having this name include Chamaecyparis lawsoniana 'Fletcheri'.

He was a landscape designer and nurseryman noted for a "well-structured" informality and a long season of interest in his perennial bed designs. His nursery was near Potdsdam, Germany where he hybridized nearly 650 new varieties of plants.

Plants named in his honor included Calamagrostis x actuiflora 'Karl Foerster', Molinia caerulea subsp. arundinacea 'Karl Foerster', Erigeron 'Foersters Liebling' and Campanula carpatica var turbinata 'Foerster'.

Nicholas Forestier redesigned the garden of Bagatelle in the Bois-de-Boulogne in Paris. He designed many gardens in Spain and also worked in the USA and South America.

George Forrest is often considered the greatest of all collectors of rhododendrons. He is credited with introducing hundreds of species from China and Tibet to the Edinburgh Botanic Garden, including R. giganteum and R. sinogrande. He was also heavily involved with members of the primrose family (Primula).

He collected over 30,000 herbarium specimens. In addition to over 300 Rhododendron, he introduced camellias, magnolias (Magnolia), Himalayan poppies (Meconopsis), lilies (Lilium), primroses (Primula) and gentians (Gentiana).

Primula forrestii and many other plants have been named in his honor. These include Iris forrestii, Hemerocallis forrestii, Abies forrestii, and Hypericum forrestii.

Forrest's plant discoveries include:

  • Clematis chrysocoma and C. forrestii

  • Rhododendron: souliei, sulfureum, trichocladum, neriiflorum, taliense, beesianum, irroratum, rubiginosum and others

  • Lilium: thomsonianum, giganteum, delavayi and ochraceum

  • Pieris forrestii

  • Pleione: delavayii, grandiflora and forrestii

  • Primula: malacoides, beesiana and many others.

William Forsyth from Old Meldrum, Scotland, became a distinguished horticulturist and was appointed Chief Superintendent of the Royal Gardens at Kensington and St James' Palace in 1784. In 1802 he published a "Treatise on the Culture and Management of Fruit Trees" which became a best-seller in its day.

He is best remembered now for the family of plants known as "Forsythia".

After studying at the Edinburgh Botanic Garden, and at the Horticultural Society gardens at Chiswick, Fortune was sent to China by the Horticultural Society in 1843. He was the first collector in China to have relative freedom and he introduced many essential garden plants to the western world.

His trees included the false larch, the Chinese plum yew, the umbrella pine and the Cryptomeria. In 1848 he returned to China and sent seeds and plants of the tea tree to India, thereby becoming the founder of the India Tea industry.

Fortune was also briefly the curator of the Chelsea Physic Garden in London.

Garden plants introduced by him include: Forsythia viridissima, Jasminium nudiflorum, Anemone japonica, Dielytra spectabilis, Kerria japonica,  Euonymus fortunei, Viburnum plicatum, Trachycarpus fortunei,  Cephalotaxus fortunei, Hosta fortunei, Rhododendron fortunei, Mahonia fortunei, Pleioblastus fortunei.

A Scotsman, John Fraser started business in London as a linen-draper near the Chelsea Physic Garden. He gave up his business to become a plant collector and explored the southern Appalachians of the U.S. in the late 1700's.

Among the plants he introduced was Magnolia fraserii but his most significant discovery is the species, Rhododendron catawbiense.

Plants named for him include Photinia x fraseri, Rhododendron 'Fraseri', Abies fraseri and Chamaecyparis lawsoniana 'Fraseri'.

Email comment from David: "Photinia fraseri is named in 1961 for Fraser Nurseries in Birmingham, Alabama and/or its president, Oliver Weston Fraser, not for John Fraser."

The specific epithet, frikartii, was named for this Swiss nurseryman. The plant,  Aster x frikartii, includes this name.

 

 

German professor of medicine who was also a dedicated field botanist. He was credited with describing and illustrating over 500 plants in his book, De Historia Stirpium.

In 1693, Father Charles Plumier named the genus Fuchsia in honor of Fuchs.

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