The plant hunters: Adventurers who transformed our gardens would put Indiana Jones to shame

Let's take a walk around a traditional British garden. You see those lilies over there – Lilium regale, with their white trumpets flushed with purple on the outside and a fragrance that hangs in the warm summer air? They were introduced to the UK by Ernest "Chinese" Wilson in 1910. He found them growing in the Min Valley in south-west China and as he was collecting them, he was caught in a landslide and broke his leg in two places. The injury left him with a limp for the rest of his life.






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