Introduction
Part 1. Possibilities
1. Experiments with Plants
2. A Brief History of the Plant Box
3. Global Gardens
4. Science at Sea
5. On the Move
6. House of Ward
Part 2. Panoramas
7. Logistics of Beauty
8. Kew’s Case
9. Case of Colonialism
10. Burning Questions
11. Wardian Cages
Conclusion: Case Closed?
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index
Luke Keogh is a curator and historian. Among his many awards and prizes are the New South Wales Premier’s General History Prize, the Sargent Award from the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, and the Maurice Daumas Prize from the International Committee for the History of Technology. Currently he is lecturer in history at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia. For more information, visit www.lukekeogh.com
“Environmental historian Keogh charts the history of the Wardian
case, a traveling greenhouse, in his fascinating debut. . . . Any
gardener fascinated by history will find this well-told story
fruitful.”
*Publishers Weekly*
“Explores how a humble box made of wood and glass changed the
course of world history. . . . [A] well-balanced, thoughtful
account. . . . Keogh carefully teases out the connections between
this innovation and its multiple consequences. . . . An in-depth
study that will suit detail-oriented gardeners and natural history
buffs.”
*Kirkus Reviews*
"An airtight box built in the late 1820s of glass panes and a
wooden frame, the Wardian case was ingenious in its construction
and application. Its inventor, an amiable English physician and
amateur botanist named Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward, discovered that
plants rooted in moist soil, then hermetically sealed in the box,
and that box placed in a sunny location, could grow for weeks, even
months, with little maintenance. . . . Keogh tracks the preeminent
role, for better or worse, that the Wardian case played over the
next century, first in the creation of many of the world’s major
botanic gardens, then in the development of a massive international
market for nonnative plants, resulting in the colonization of
nations for the cultivation of cash crops and the often-ruinous
spread of plant pests, diseases, and invasive species. If the
Wardian case has long been abandoned for the air-freighting of
plant material, Keogh's bittersweet history reveals just how
impactful that simple box remains today."
*Booklist*
“In The Wardian Case, Keogh covers the Ripping
Yarns-style consequences of its use: from plant hunters sending
back specimens to British nurseries and a gardening public hungry
for new ornamental species such as rhododendrons, camellias and
fuchsias, the huge economic benefits for empire builders—not only
the British (including in Keogh’s native Australia) but French and
German and the new territories of the United States. Commercial
agricultural crops such as coffee, cocoa, tea, rubber, bananas, and
cinchona (from which antimalarial quinine made) were transplanted
to continents far from their native home. And, very much in tune
with today’s gimlet revisionist eye on colonial history, Keogh
examines the dark side of this. While the colonists and investors
may have reaped the benefits of these new plantations (sometimes
with crops smuggled from their home countries), the indigenous
people lost their precious lands to mile-after-mile of monoculture,
and were often used as indentured labor in the harshest of
conditions.”
*Daily Telegraph*
"Engrossing, well-illustrated. . . . The tires on your car. The tea
in your cup. The exotic plants in your garden or decorating your
home. These and many more everyday items that have become part of
our lives trace their roots to Ward’s eureka moment. But Keogh’s
meticulous, globe-trotting investigation is a sobering reminder of
the profound impact humans have had on the planet simply by moving
plants."
*The Scotsman*
"Keogh presents the remarkable story of this chance discovery and
its world-changing effects. If you are already familiar with
Wardian cases, you’ll be delighted with this opportunity to learn
the fascinating history of their discovery and development. And if
you’re unfamiliar with them, this book will introduce you to one of
the most on-the-surface mundane but in reality most world-changing
technological innovations of the nineteenth century."
*Well-read Naturalist*
"Keogh’s book, the first to discuss the Wardian case, really
explains how this invention drove the revolution in plant
relocation. He steps back through time to paint a vivid picture of
Dr. Ward, his associations with both amateur and professional
horticulturalists, and how the exploration in remote regions of the
world—along with the successful transportation of then-unknown
plants—forever changed our botanical world. Of course,
nineteenth-century imperialism reared its ugly head during this era
and that too is addressed by Keogh. Whether you are interested in
collections of rare orchids, the history of quinine plantations,
expansion of tea growing regions in the world, or the early days of
rubber trees, this book covers it all in amazing
well-researched detail. Our world has been changed dramatically due
to this one invention, and for that reason alone it is well worth
reading about."
*Monadnock Ledger-Transcript*
"The Wardian case was nothing more than a simple wooden box. Yet
it’s no exaggeration to say that this box literally changed the
world we live in. Now an Aussie environmental historian has
chronicled its remarkable history in an entertaining new book. If
you’re a sucker for tales about early plant explorers (as I am)
this is an eye-opening read. It made me realize the debt we
gardeners owe to Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward, a medical doctor and
amateur botanist who devised the box (a forerunner to the modern
terrarium) to help plants survive in the dirty air of Victorian
London. . . . Predictably, all the botanical bustling about the
globe had a downside. Invasive species spread too and the soil used
in the boxes transported myriad diseases and bugs. But what
happened makes a great story, and Keogh tells it well. The photos
are also fascinating."
*Trellis*
"Keogh documents many such examples of desirable plant
translocations: tea, bananas, fever bark, orchids, cacao, and
others of horticultural interest. Alongside the desirable plants,
pests were also moved, and such global ecological alteration is
also part of the story. Keogh details these plant introductions and
related scientific studies, set within the cultural and
expeditionary context of a network of influential scientists,
colonists of varied circumstances, and government colonizers, along
with biographical notes on the plant explorers whose efforts were
critical to these ventures. Recommended."
*Choice*
"The Wardian Case is abundantly illustrated, meticulously
researched and evidence-based—more than thirty pages of detailed
notes supplement the text—and engagingly written. Keogh is to be
congratulated on bringing the story of this humble, but
world-changing, box to greater prominence and to the attention of
all, and adding to the debate about botanical Imperialism. This is
powerful plants-and-people fare!"
*Botany One*
"The detailed research that underpins Keogh’s book is superb and
doubtless definitive. . . . this is an invaluable book, which
scholars in many different fields will be consulting for many years
to come."
*Journal of the History of Biology*
"Keogh’s research resurrects a vanished technology and makes
possible a new set of questions about the events it silently
witnessed."
*Victorian Studies*
Top 10 Books of 2020
*American Horticultural Society*
"Environmental historian and museum curator Luke Keogh uses the
Wardian case as a launching point to chart the global
infrastructures and enterprises for moving plants. . . . Keogh
builds a more complex narrative highlighting the diverse actors and
institutions responsible for not only the spread, but also the
continued optimization of Ward’s initial invention. Europe’s
eminent state research institutions, foremost Kew Gardens, feature
in Keogh’s account of the Wardian case’s rise to a ubiquitous
technology in the global industry of collecting and transporting
plants."
*NTM Journal of the History of Science, Technology and
Medicine*
“Gutenberg’s printing press, Bell’s telephone, and the Wrights’
flying machine transformed the world. So did Nathaniel Ward’s
revolutionary plant box. The Wardian Case is brilliantly researched
and fairly presents dual legacies of botanical introduction and
unintended consequence.”
*Michael Dosmann, keeper of the Living Collections, Arnold
Arboretum of Harvard University*
“The Wardian Case gives us profuse examples of how the case made
possible some of the important botanical introductions into Europe
and other countries, and how it was used (successfully and less so)
in practice. We learn how the case evolved and changed after Ward
died in 1868. Then there are the problems caused by transporting
plants and their soil around the world, leading to invasive plants
and animals. Along the way we hear about various botanical journeys
and expeditions and some of the movements of important crop plants,
such as rubber, bananas, tea, and cinchona. Fresh, fascinating, and
largely untold, the story of nineteenth-century surgeon and
naturalist Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward, his ‘big’ invention, and its
impact on the world then and now deserves the kind of scholarship
Keogh provides.”
*Tim Entwisle, director and chief executive, Royal Botanic Gardens
Victoria (Australia)*
“The Wardian Case explores how a seemingly mundane piece of
Victorian technology has transformed global environments, in large
ways and small, by facilitating the global exchange of living
plants. Detailed and nuanced, it is not just the history of an
object, but also of a national and then global network of people
interested in long-distance plant transfers. It shows how the
Wardian case helped create new kinds of social, biological, and
ecological connections between distant parts of the world, from the
early nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. Keogh’s
writing is vivid and lively, and the book sparkles when he
describes Ward’s houses and his broader world. Elsewhere it is
filled with rich images—of children in India struggling to carry
heavy Wardian cases, of Japanese carpenters trying to figure out
how to build a Wardian case, of new species of worms from Southeast
Asia appearing in Kew, and of the author’s own encounter with the
ecological legacy of the Wardian case, with his sons on a beach in
Australia. Engaging and accessible, this is a significant
contribution.”
*Stuart McCook, University of Guelph, author of "Coffee Is Not
Forever: A Global History of the Coffee Leaf Rust"*
"The Wardian Case, with its quality illustrations, informative
graphs and maps, together with clear and vivid prose, makes it an
insightful read and a valuable contribution to the field of
environmental history. It brings to the fore the ecological legacy
of the Wardian case – today’s world of cash-crop plantations and
plant diseases that threaten native species. In short, it deserves
a wide readership both inside and outside academia."
*History Australia*
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