Ernest Henry Wilson

Ernest Henry Chinese Wilson , better known as E. H. Wilson, was a notable English plant collector who introduced a large range of about 2000 of Asian plant species to the West some sixty bear his name.

Wilson was born in Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire but the family soon moved to Shirley, Warwickshire, where they set up a floristry business. He left school early for employment at the local nursery of Messrs. Hewitt, Warwickshire, as apprentice gardener, and, aged 16, at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens there he also studied at Birmingham Municipal Technical School in the evenings, receiving the Queens Prize for botany. In 1897 he began work at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, where he won the Hooker Prize for an essay on conifers. He then accepted a position as Chinese plant collector with the firm of James Veitch amp Sons, who were eager above all to retrieve the dove tree, Davidia involucrata. Stick to the one thing you are after, advised Harry Veitch, who had more than a dozen plant hunters on payroll, and dont spend time and money wandering about. Probably every worthwhile plant in China has now been introduced to Europe.

Source: Wikipedia