William Gardener

William Gardener assesses the handiwork of Sir William Jackson Hooker and John Lindley.

William Gardener investigates the history of American flora and finds among its contributions to the health and happiness of Europe the not inconsiderable commodities of maize, the potato, rubber, tobacco, and quinine.

William Gardener describes how Russia's stealthy advance across Siberia led to close relations with China in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

William Gardener describes how silks, tobacco and tea from China were exchanged across the deserts northwest of Peking for furs, cloth and leather from Asiatic Russia.

William Gardener describes how, since the first century A.D. rhubarb was known to the Romans as a panacea for internal ailments, and imported from China.

Malaria was one of the scourges of the British Indian Empire. William Gardener writes how a remedy was at last provided by the introduction of a South-American tree.