Colombian curiosities in the Directors' Correspondence at Kew

By: Virginia Mills - 01/02/2010

Here is another little taste of what we have come across in our work digitising Kew's Directors' Correspondence collection. Robert Blake White is an interesting character who wrote to Kew Gardens c.1868 to 1899. His letters concern such diverse subjects as the collection of native Colombian artefacts, or 'grave goods', to his own forthright opinions on gardening in synch with the phases of the moon.

Grave Goods

White went to work in Colombia in South America as an engineer and he writes of his travels throughout the country, the things he saw and the collection of artefacts he made on his way. His letters mention chisels, clay whistles, earthenware musical instruments and pottery goods, which he offers to send to Kew, along with interesting plants he found. Many of the fruits and seeds White collected are in Kew's Economic Botany and Herbarium collections, and some of the artefacts mentioned by White in the Directors' Correspondence were later transferred to the British Museum.
 

Sketches of some of the antiquities White has seen; two pottery jars and the heads of two gigantic stone figures at San Augustin, Colombia.  

Gardening by the Moon

White's letters also reveal that it wasn't just plants and artefacts he picked up in Colombia, he also adopted some of the local ideas about farming and cultivation. A letter White wrote from Palmira in 1896 explains his belief that the moon has a profound effect on both the flora and fauna of the tropics, where the seasons are less distinct. His theory is that plants grow under the influence of the new moon and rest for the remainder of the lunar period. He gives a list of 13 practical rules for lunar planting. White believed all these rules should be followed by horticulturists and arboriculturalists, for example: tree resin should be collected at the new moon for a greater yield and medicinal plants should be harvested after the full moon to benefit from their full potency.

'Gardening by the moon' has a long tradition. The ancient Roman scholar Pliny observed in around AD77 that: "it is a point most religiously observed to insert the graft during the moon's increase" [Naturalis Historia 17.24 trans John Bostock and H.T. Riley]. White's letters to Kew, hundreds of years later, give the very same advice. Some gardeners to this day hold to the practice of lunar planting and farmers' almanacs have an established tradition of using lunar cycles to guide their calendars.

What do you think?

White's botanical practices may seem to be founded purely in tradition but his letters do display an effort to ground his theory with scientific reasoning and he bases it not only on inherited wisdom and superstition but on his own observations during the thirty years he spent in Colombia. Perhaps those of you with green fingers or veggie patches have your own planting traditions? We're interested to hear what you think, so please leave a comment below if you have an opinion on lunar planting, or just tell us about what you get up to in your gardens...

- Ginny -

Discover more...

• See Robert Blake White's letters to Kew Gardens in full and explore what else is in the Directors' Correspondence collection online at JSTOR Global Plants Initiative
• Meet the Directors' Correspondence digitisation team
• For further information about the Kew Archives see our  webpages
• Building a global network - Kew in South America
• Explore Kew's Economic Botany collection
• Discover Kew's Herbarium 

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