• Highdown cotoneasters, Worthing Borough Council

    'Will the plants be admired or sneered at, or worst fate of all, ignored?'

    Frank Kingdon-Ward ‘Romance of Plant hunting’

Scroll below to see some of plant hunters associated with Highdown Gardens. They were part of an exclusive global botanical collecting network. Their work was dangerous and they relied on local hill people to survive. Apart from Ernest Wilson, all these plant hunters were funded by Stern in collectors’ syndicates from 1913 to 1939. Stern also swapped seeds with many collectors including the Messels of Nymans and Lionel de Rothschild at Exbury. Statistics from ‘The Secrets of Great Botanists’ by Matthew Biggs/RHS.