Robert Fortune
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Robert Fortune
Robert Fortune (16 September 1812 – 13 April 1880) was a Scottish botanist, plant hunter and traveller, best known for introducing around 250 new ornamental plants, mainly from China, but also Japan, into the gardens of Britain, Australia, and the USA. He also played a role in the development of the tea industry in India in the 19th century. Life Fortune was born at Edrom, Berwickshire. After completing his apprenticeship, he was then employed at Moredun House, just to the south of Edinburgh, before then moving on to the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. In 1840 he and his family moved to London to take up a position at the Horticultural Society of London's garden at Chiswick. Following the Treaty of Nanking in 1842, in early 1843 he was commissioned by the H.S. to undertake a three-year plant collection expedition to southern China. His travels resulted in the introduction to Europe, Australia and the USA of many new, exotic, beautiful flowers and plants. His most famous a ...
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Edrom
Edrom is a parish and small village in the pre-1975 ancient county of Berwickshire, now an administrative area of the Scottish Borders region of Scotland. The rural parish of Edrom is in east central Berwickshire being bounded on the north by the parishes of Bunkle and Preston, Scottish Borders, Preston and Chirnside, on the east by the Parishes of Chirnside, Hutton, Scottish Borders, Hutton and Whitsome and Hilton, on the south by the parishes of Whitsome and Hilton, Swinton, Scottish Borders, Swinton and Fogo, Scottish Borders, Fogo and on the west by the parishes of Langton and Duns, Scottish Borders, Duns. It includes the nearby village of Allanton, Scottish Borders, Allanton. Locality Edrom lies three miles north-east of Duns, Scottish Borders, Duns, and close to the Whiteadder Water. Nearby are Allanbank, Scottish Borders, Allanbank, Allanton, Scottish Borders, Allanton, the Blackadder Water, Blanerne Castle, Chirnside, Chirnsidebridge, Foulden, Scottish Borders, Fould ...
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Chinese People
The Chinese people or simply Chinese, are people or ethnic groups identified with China, usually through ethnicity, nationality, citizenship, or other affiliation. Chinese people are known as Zhongguoren () or as Huaren () by speakers of standard Chinese, including those living in Greater China as well as overseas Chinese. Although both terms both refer to Chinese people, their usage depends on the person and context. The former term is commonly used to refer to the citizens of the People's Republic of China - especially mainland China. The term Huaren is used to refer to ethnic Chinese, and is more often used for those who reside overseas or are non-citizens of China. The Han Chinese are the largest ethnic group in China, comprising approximately 92% of its Mainland population.CIA Factbook
"Han Chinese 91.6%" out of a r ...
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Silkworm
The domestic silk moth (''Bombyx mori''), is an insect from the moth family Bombycidae. It is the closest relative of '' Bombyx mandarina'', the wild silk moth. The silkworm is the larva or caterpillar of a silk moth. It is an economically important insect, being a primary producer of silk. A silkworm's preferred food are white mulberry leaves, though they may eat other mulberry species and even the osage orange. Domestic silk moths are entirely dependent on humans for reproduction, as a result of millennia of selective breeding. Wild silk moths (other species of ''Bombyx'') are not as commercially viable in the production of silk. Sericulture, the practice of breeding silkworms for the production of raw silk, has been under way for at least 5,000 years in China, whence it spread to India, Korea, Nepal, Japan, and the West. The domestic silk moth was domesticated from the wild silk moth '' Bombyx mandarina'', which has a range from northern India to northern China, Korea, ...
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Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast, and the Philippines to the south. The territories controlled by the ROC consist of 168 islands, with a combined area of . The main island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', has an area of , with mountain ranges dominating the eastern two-thirds and plains in the western third, where its highly urbanised population is concentrated. The capital, Taipei, forms along with New Taipei City and Keelung the largest metropolitan area of Taiwan. Other major cities include Taoyuan, Taichung, Tainan, and Kaohsiung. With around 23.9 million inhabitants, Taiwan is among the most densely populated countries in the world. Taiwan has been settled for at least 25,000 years. Ancestors of Taiwanese indigenous peoples settled the isla ...
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Sri Lankan Tea
Sri Lanka (formerly called Ceylon) has a climate and varied elevation that allows for the production of both ''Camellia sinensis var. assamica'' and ''Camellia sinensis var. sinensis'', with the assamica varietal holding the majority of production. Tea production is one of the main sources of foreign exchange for Sri Lanka, and accounts for 2% of GDP, contributing over US$1.3 billion in 2021 to the economy of Sri Lanka. It employs, directly or indirectly, over 1 million people, and in 1995 directly employed 215,338 on tea plantations and estates. In addition, tea planting by smallholders is the source of employment for thousands whilst it is also the main form of livelihood for tens of thousands of families. Sri Lanka is the world's fourth-largest producer of tea. In 1995, it was the world's leading exporter of tea (rather than producer), with 23% of the total world export, and Sri Lanka ranked second on tea export earnings in 2020 after China. The highest production of 340 mi ...
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Assam Tea
Assam tea is a black tea named after the region of its production, Assam, India. It is manufactured specifically from the plant '' Camellia sinensis'' var. ''assamica'' (Masters). The Assam tea plant is indigenous to Assam—initial efforts to plant the Chinese varieties in Assam soil did not succeed. Assam tea is now mostly grown at or near sea level and is known for its body, briskness, malty flavour, and strong, bright colour. Assam teas, or blends containing Assam tea, are often sold as "breakfast" teas. For instance, Irish breakfast tea, a maltier and stronger breakfast tea, consists of small-sized Assam tea leaves. The state of Assam is the world's largest tea-growing region by production, lying on either side of the Brahmaputra River, and bordering Bhutan, Bangladesh, Myanmar and very close to China. This part of India experiences high rainfall; during the monsoon period, as much as 250 to 300 mm (10 to 12 in) of rain per day. The daytime temperature rises to abo ...
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East India Company
The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia), and later with East Asia. The company seized control of large parts of the Indian subcontinent, colonised parts of Southeast Asia and Hong Kong. At its peak, the company was the largest corporation in the world. The EIC had its own armed forces in the form of the company's three Presidency armies, totalling about 260,000 soldiers, twice the size of the British army at the time. The operations of the company had a profound effect on the global balance of trade, almost single-handedly reversing the trend of eastward drain of Western bullion, seen since Roman times. Originally chartered as the "Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East-Indies", the company rose to account for half of the world's trade du ...
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Wardian Case
The Wardian case was an early type of terrarium, a sealed protective container for plants. It found great use in the 19th century in protecting foreign plants imported to Europe from overseas, the great majority of which had previously died from exposure during long sea journeys, frustrating the many scientific and amateur botanists of the time. The Wardian case was the direct forerunner of the modern terrarium and vivarium and the inspiration for the glass aquarium. It is named after Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward (1791–1868) of London, who promoted the case after experiments. He published a book titled ''On the Growth of Plants in Closely Glazed Cases'' in 1842. A Scottish botanist named A. A. Maconochie had created a similar terrarium almost a decade earlier, but his failure to publish meant that Ward received credit as the sole inventor. History and development Ward was a physician with a passion for botany. His personally collected herbarium amounted to 25,000 specimens. The fer ...
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Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward
Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward (1791 – 4 June 1868 in St Leonard's, Sussex) was an English doctor who popularised a case for growing and transporting plants which was called the Wardian case. Biography Ward was born in London to Stephen Smith Ward, a medical doctor. Little is known of his early years and family life, but he is believed to have been sent to Jamaica at the age of thirteen where he may have taken an interest in plants. He practised medicine in a poor area of the East End of London and took an interest in botany and entomology in spare time or when on vacation in Cobham, Kent. Tytler Whittle in his book, ''The Plant Hunters'', describes the area where he lived: Ward qualified as a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in London in 1814, then later became a fellow of the Linnean Society in 1852. His four sons, Stephen (born 1819), Nathaniel (born 1821), John (born 1824) and Richard (born 1831) all went on to qualify as doctors and surgeons. Stephen and Nathanie ...
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Jiangsu
Jiangsu (; ; pinyin: Jiāngsū, alternatively romanized as Kiangsu or Chiangsu) is an eastern coastal province of the People's Republic of China. It is one of the leading provinces in finance, education, technology, and tourism, with its capital in Nanjing. Jiangsu is the third smallest, but the fifth most populous and the most densely populated of the 23 provinces of the People's Republic of China. Jiangsu has the highest GDP per capita of Chinese provinces and second-highest GDP of Chinese provinces, after Guangdong. Jiangsu borders Shandong in the north, Anhui to the west, and Zhejiang and Shanghai to the south. Jiangsu has a coastline of over along the Yellow Sea, and the Yangtze River passes through the southern part of the province. Since the Sui and Tang dynasties, Jiangsu has been a national economic and commercial center, partly due to the construction of the Grand Canal. Cities such as Nanjing, Suzhou, Wuxi, Changzhou, and Shanghai (separated from J ...
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Guangdong
Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) across a total area of about , Guangdong is the most populous province of China and the 15th-largest by area as well as the second-most populous country subdivision in the world (after Uttar Pradesh in India). Its economy is larger than that of any other province in the nation and the fifth largest sub-national economy in the world with a GDP (nominal) of 1.95 trillion USD (12.4 trillion CNY) in 2021. The Pearl River Delta Economic Zone, a Chinese megalopolis, is a core for high technology, manufacturing and foreign trade. Located in this zone are two of the four top Chinese cities and the top two Chinese prefecture-level cities by GDP; Guangzhou, the capital of the province, and Shenzhen, the first special economic zone in the c ...
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Fujian
Fujian (; alternately romanized as Fukien or Hokkien) is a province on the southeastern coast of China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, Guangdong to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the east. Its capital is Fuzhou, while its largest city by population is Quanzhou, both located near the coast of the Taiwan Strait in the east of the province. While its population is predominantly of Chinese ethnicity, it is one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse provinces in China. The dialects of the language group Min Chinese were most commonly spoken within the province, including the Fuzhou dialect of northeastern Fujian and various Hokkien dialects of southeastern Fujian. Hakka Chinese is also spoken, by the Hakka people in Fujian. Min dialects, Hakka and Mandarin Chinese are mutually unintelligible. Due to emigration, a sizable amount of the ethnic Chinese populations of Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippin ...
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