CHINA is, indeed, the Mother of Gardens, for of the countries to which our gardens are most deeply indebted she holds the foremost place. From the bursting into blossom of the Forsythias and Yulan Magnolias in the early spring to the Peonies and Roses in summer and the Chrysanthemums in the autumn, China's contributions to the floral wealth of gardens is in evidence. To China the flower lover owes the parents of the modern Rose, be they Tea or Hybrid Tea, Rambler or Polyantha; likewise his greenhouse Azaleas and Primroses, and the fruit grower, his Peaches, Oranges, Lemons and Grapefruit. It is safe to say that there is no garden in this country or in Europe that is without its Chinese representatives and these rank among the finest of tree, shrub, herb and vine. It was in 1899 that I first set foot in China, to leave it finally in 1911. Until 1905 my collecting work was done in the interests of the well known English nursery firm of Veitch, now, alas! no longer in existence; from 1906 to 1911 it was on behalf of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University. As a result of my plant hunting in China more than a thousand new plants are now established in gardens of America and Europe. The privilege and the opportunity were great and I claim only to have made full use of both. In the following pages will be found some account of my eleven years' wanderings and observations in the Flowery Kingdom. I have endeavored to give a general description of the flora and scenery of western China and of the manners and customs of the little known non-Chinese tribes inhabiting the Chino-Thibetan borderland. I saw China through the eyes of a nature lover and botanist interested in all phases of natural history. Ernest Henry Wilson Arnold Arboretum, Harvard University, February 15, 1929.

Includes preliminary number dated Apr. 1927.

First Published in 2001. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Trees are the grandest and most beautiful plant creations on earth. From their shade-giving, arching branches and strikingly diverse bark to their complex root systems, trees represent shelter, stability, place, and community as few other living objects can. Enduring Roots tells the stories of historic American trees, including the oak, the apple, the cherry, and the oldest of the world's trees, the bristlecone pine. These stories speak of our attachment to the land, of our universal and eternal need to leave a legacy, and demonstrate that the landscape is a gift, to be both received and, sometimes, tragically, to be destroyed. Each chapter of this book focuses on a specific tree or group of trees and its relationship to both natural and human history, while exploring themes of community, memory, time, and place. Readers learn that colonial farmers planted marker trees near their homes to commemorate auspicious events like the birth of a child, a marriage, or the building of a house. They discover that Benjamin Franklin's Newtown Pippin apples were made into a pie aboard Captain Cook's Endeavour while the ship was sailing between Tahiti and New Zealand. They are told the little-known story of how the Japanese flowering cherry became the official tree of our nation's capital--a tale spanning many decades and involving an international cast of characters. Taken together, these and many other stories provide us with a new ways to interpret the American landscape. "It is my hope," the author writes, "that this collection will be seen for what it is, a few trees selected from a great forest, and that readers will explore both--the trees and the forest--and find pieces of their own stories in each."

The pace of environmental degradation in China has intensified in recent decades. With rapid demographic and economic growth, the current state of degradation has antecedents beginning hundreds of years ago. Patterns of China's Lost Harmony combines historical documentation with contemporary assessment to determine the degree of human impact upon the country's vegetation, soils, water, air and wildlife. This will serve as an important reference tool for understanding the historical scope of environmental degradation and for assessing attempts to control environmental degradation since the 1980s.

In The Classical Gardens of Shanghai, Shelly Bryant looks at five of Shanghai’s remaining classical gardens through their origins, changing fortunes, restorations, and links to a wider Chinese aesthetic. Shanghai’s classical gardens are as much text as space; they exist in art, poetry, and literature as much as in stone, rock, and earth. But these gardens have not remained static entities. Rather, they have been remodelled constantly since their inception. This book reflects this process within the constancy of traditional Chinese horticulture and reveals Shanghai’s remaining classical gardens as places representing wealth and social status, social and dynastic shifts, through falling family fortunes and political revolutions to search for a recovery of China’s ancient culture in the modern day. “Like a classical Chinese garden, this admirable and beautifully balanced book conjures up wider landscapes from within a small compass. It can be savoured on many levels: poetic and aesthetic no less than scholarly and intellectual. It is the next best thing to being guided through such gardens by Shelly Bryant herself.” —Lynn Pan, author of When True Love Came to China and Shanghai Style

This new edition provides a new preface to this highly popular book. The theme of the book is China's relations with the non-Chinese world, not only political and economic, but cultural, social and technological as well. It seeks to show that China's history is part of everyone's history. In particular it traces China's relationship since the thirteenth century to the emergent world order and the various world institutions of which that order is comprised. Each chapter discusses China's comparative place in the world, the avenues of contact between China and other civilizations, and who and what passed along these channels.