Pages 175-177 of John Damper Parks' journal and notes: 'Observations respecting the size or beauty of some certain trees & plants seen in China' by John Damper Parks

Title

Pages 175-177 of John Damper Parks' journal and notes: 'Observations respecting the size or beauty of some certain trees & plants seen in China' by John Damper Parks

Record type

Archive

Original Reference

RHS/Col/4/1/18

Date

26 Sep 1823

Scope & content

Pages 175-177: 'Observations respecting the size or beauty of some certain trees & plants seen in China'

This item is bound in the volume comprising journal and notes of John Damper Parks

A list of plants in China and Macao [Macau], including Nepenthes ('a complete novelty' from the Lapa hills: 'I may say a phenomenon I think', enough to have 'laden two long carts' with; the plants were very large, with a specimen cut off measuring seven and a half feet in length, 'which I consider immense'; the seeds may be too delicate to grow 'in an artificial way'; the plants were growing on the high slope of a hill, with a spring halfway down: 'properly speaking I may say this place was in a manner a kind of a bog', with stagnated and fetid water), Diospyrus kaki [Diospyros kaki] ('grows to a modest size, like the plum tribe in England'), Hibiscus mutabilis ('Mr Beale [Thomas Beale, naturalist, merchant and opium speculator in Macao] has got a plant 15 feet high, it seems inclined to go much higher, double flower, not very mutable'), Carica papaya ('I saw plants to the height of 15 feet with leaves 9 feet in length. And a mass of fruit I may call it, for 5 or 6 feet together, sticking round the stem. The Chinese and particular the Portuguese eat the fruit of the Carica in various ways, as a vegetable, as a fruit, and they make a sauce of it to use as we use apple sauce in England') and Lagerstroemia regina ('makes a fine plant for the shrubbery department, blooming very magnificently indeed, bearing very large spikes of bloom, sometimes to the length of 2 or 3 feet') [here the list includes approximately 25 more plants]

Extent

3 pages

Is part of

RHS archive: plant collector papers

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)