KINGDON-WARD, Frank.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Plant Hunter in Manipur. First edition, signed by the author on the title page in 1955. "The last of the great plant hunters" (Lyte), Kingdon-Ward undertook an expedition to Assam in 1948 with his wife, Jean Macklin, to whom the book is dedicated. While in Manipur, they became the first westerners to correctly identify the beautiful Shirui lily, named in Maklin's honour and now cultivated in English gardens.In total, the journey through Manipur produced 1,400 herbarium specimens of around 1,000 species. Macklin (1921-2011) partnered Kingdon-Ward (1885-1958) on four further expeditions to northern Burma and India, including in 1950, when they found themselves near the epicentre of the Richter 8.7 Assam earthquake. Kingdon-Ward was awarded the Founder's Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society (1930) and numerous botanical honours.

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