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The Botanical Legacy of Joseph Rock
Jeffrey Wagner
Joseph Rock not only collected some remarkable plants but also took some
remarkable photographs.
Joseph Rock’s rich botanical legacy is espe- geography and geological past. The only other
cially impressive considering he was a self- area of the world remotely similar is eastern
taught botanist and already thirty-six years old North America, with its extensive yet com-
at the time of his first expedition to Asia. He paratively homogeneous forests dominated by
established his name in botanical circles oaks, hickories, ashes, maples, and a few other
through his work on the flora of the Hawaiian species. In western China, however, with
islands between 1910 and 1920. During his some of the world’s highest mountains and
years there, he explored extensively and wrote deepest river valleys, as well as close prox-
several landmark works on Hawaiian plants. imity to tropical and subtropical evergreen
He almost single-handedly established forests and expanses of desolate uplands, the
Hawaii’s first official herbarium collection flora is correspondingly diverse. It is no sur-
with over twenty-nine thousand specimens, prise that Rock and his explorer colleagues
most of which he collected himself. This collected and sent shipment after shipment
work prepared him well and set the stage for of plants that held both botanists and hor-
his next career as a botanical explorer and ticulturists in wonder.
plant hunter in Asia. Rock was a latecomer to the field, and since
The United States Department of Agricul- many before him had made their reputations
ture was Rock’s first employer in this new role on the discovery of countless plants new to
and, in 1919, sent him to India and Burma to science and horticulture, he was destined to
locate and collect seed of the Chaulamoogra follow in their footsteps and collect the dis-
tree (Taraktogenos kurzii and related species), coveries of others. He did this with care and
which provided a substance proven effective acumen, but never published a single book or
in the treatment of leprosy. Rock’s expedition article on China’s flora. On the first Chinese
was a success, and the seed he collected expedition, Rock collected nearly eighty thou-
resulted in a plantation of several thousand sand plant specimens for the Smithsonian’s
trees in Hawaii. herbarium and seed of innumerable plants
The National Geographic Society and the from the high alpine meadows of the Yulong
Smithsonian Institution were his first spon- Xueshan range and the immense montane
sors in China. From 1922 to 1924, Rock was forest covering the slopes and valleys of the
based in Yunnan province and, as had the SinoTibetan borderlands. Among these plants
plant explorers before him, he began to dis- were several horticulturally valuable forms of
cover the incredible diversity of China’s mon- rhododendrons, from the fifty-foot Rhododen-
tane deciduous and evergreen forests. This is dron sinogrande tree to the smaller alpine spe-
a unique temperate flora, unusually rich in cies that carpet the mountain meadows with
species and habitat diversity because of the blue, violet, pink, white, or yellow flowers.
particular circumstances of southwest China’s Many of Rock’s exceptionally handsome,
30 )i
hardy, floriferous forms still grace the public petals, and each petal stained deep purple at
and private botanical collections of Scotland, the inside base. It is a favored plant in both
Wales, southern England, northern continen- Europe and America and with age becomes
tal Europe, and America’s Pacific Northwest. increasingly impressive, covering itself each
After this first expedition, Rock became spring with more and more blossoms. The
known for his meticulous, thorough collect- original plant was destroyed in 1928 when
ing and well-prepared specimens in many Muslim soldiers attacked and burned Choni
duplicate sheets; these enabled herbaria to to the ground. No other example of the
trade or distribute the extra sheets to allow subspecies has been found since in China.
other institutions ample material for their Farther to the north, the country was very
own studies. Another valuable aspect of barren, as a result of climatic extremes, but
Rock’s collecting was his passion for plant again at a lamasery-this time the famous
photography, illustrating a particular plant’s Kumbum Monastery-in the Yellow River’s
habit and habitat, and supplementing the desolate loess plain, Rock collected seed from
pressed material and his field notes to make a venerable old lilac (Syringa oblata). It was,
an invaluable botanical record of the rugged he claimed, the very tree that inspired Tsong-
areas through which he traveled. He is khapa, founder of Tibetan Buddhism’s
remembered as well for the quantity, quality, Gelugpa school. The fourteenth-century lama
and purity of the seed he sent back from reputedly saw a thousand shining images of
China. the Buddha in the leaves of this lilac.
On two expeditions, one for Harvard
more The expedition conducted for the Arnold
University’s Arnold Arboretum and another Arboretum was a botanical and horticultural
for the National Geographic Society, Rock success. In addition to the birch, peony, and
explored areas farther to the north, all the way lilac, Rock collected species of fir, spruce,
.. ~t~.. r~r:~..t~..~ _...._~..........t..............--...............",..........1-.....,.<" ..c ~~,o
to the Minshan range, the upper reaches of the %-, juniper, rowan, linden, maple, poplar, rose,
Yellow River, the Kokonor Lake, and beyond. rhododendron, mock orange, and many other
rhododendron, mock orange,
These regions yielded fewer yet hardier plants, trees, shrubs, and alpine species. These valu-
several of which are still in cultivation and able herbarium specimens and propagation
production as ornamentals. materials were sent back to the Arboretum
One incomparable contribution by Rock and further distributed to other institutions
was a stunningly beautiful copper birch (Bet- in North America and Europe. His contribu-
ula albo-sinensis var. septentrionalis). This tions today provide an excellent record of the
tree has a shimmering, dark, coppery-red flora of western China, now under great pres-
trunk, the result of a silky smooth, paper-thin sure from exploitation.
bark that peels away to reveal a waxy bloom Rock’s last expedition, sponsored by the
underneath. Previously known to grow well National Geographic Society, to the Minya
in cooler climates such as that of northern Konka region in Sechuan provided such a
Europe, Rock’s find was an exceptional, hor- great volume of material that it has not yet
ticulturally superior form. been worked over completely by botanists.
Another excellent plant that Rock collected One of his best-known yet least-documented
is a tree peony that bears his name, Paeonia finds comes from this area, and there is irony
suffruticosa subsp. rockii. He found it grow- in the fact that this plant, one of obvious
ing inside Choni Monastery in Gansu ornamental quality, cannot be unequivocally
province and, although he had never encoun- attributed to Rock. It is an attractive rowan
tered it in the wild, thought sufficiently whose outstanding qualities include its
highly of this specimen to photograph it and emerald-green, finely sculpted, and divided
collect seed. It is a remarkable hardy and leaves that in autumn turn a fiery red in color-
attractive shrub, some four feet tall, with large ful contrast to its amber-yellow fruit. It
white flowers, each with a single layer of appeared as a chance seedling among Rock’s
31
The people of Chingshui, Kansu, are gathered in front of the inn where Joseph Rock
stayed, listening to his phonograph playing the sextet from Donizetti’s Lucia di Lam-
mermoor. Soldiers are guardmg the entrances to the mn. Photographed 11 April 1925.
collections at the Royal Botanic Garden in appalled at the state of native
besieged
Edinburgh. No record could be found of an Hawaiian plants. He among the last
was
herbarium specimen or field note, and some botanists to see several now-extinct plant spe-
even believe it to be a hybrid. It is variously cies growing in their native habitats.
classified either as a hybrid or as a species The solid achievements of this self-taught
form of other Chinese rowans. It goes by botanist in the rugged and spectacular world
the name Sorbus ’Joseph Rock’ and most of plant hunting in western China will long
likely will never be classified with absolute outlast the eccentricities of character and
certainty. scholarship for which he is otherwise
Although Rock continued to do some col- remembered.
lecting during his final years in China, mostly
for the American Rhododendron Society, he
did not return to botany with real zeal until Jeff Wagner, who holds a master’s degree in forestry, did
the last years of his life in Hawaii. During this his research for this article at the Arnold Arboretum. This
time, while in his seventies, he would often article was reprinted from Michael Aris, Lamas, Princes,
dash up a volcano to collect a specimen of and Brigands: Joseph Rock’s Photographs of the Tibetan
Borderlands of China, the catalogue of an exhibition at
some nearly extinct plant for the botanic
China Institute m America, New York, April 18 through
gardens of Kew, Edinburgh, or elsewhere. Rock July 31, 1992. The photographs are from the Archives of
reported to botanists at Kew that he was the Arnold Arboretum.
Overleaf: "The central portion of the Labrang Monastery, Kansu, China, showmg the large buildings, either yellow
or red, the market, and a crowd of people can be seen to the left near the trees. Spruces are in the left hand
corner, while poplars are in the squares near the bottom of the picture." Caption written by Rock. Photographed
30 April 1926.
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"Pale red sand stone mountains, absolutely bare and deeply eroded as if sculpted,
in a valley back of Kansu, which is situated directly in the valley of the Yellow
River, west of Shun Hoa." 24 November 1925.
’An alpine meadow at the summit of Tsarekika," Joseph Rock wrote, "the last
pass the Minshan to the valleys debauching into the Tas River. It was here
across
that our party was attacked last year by Tebbu brigands and one of my men badly
wounded. It is a rendezvous place of Upper Tebbu robbers as three trails converge
there." Elevation 11,250 feet. Photographed 18 September 1926.
35
Populus simonii growing at Chom, southwest Kansu, China. Note the large burl at the base
of the tree and the smaller ones along the trunk. Elevation 8,300 feet. Photographed in
January 1926.
