Chapter outlines
Chapter 1
The Thistle from Madagascar
The Portuguese at the Cape of Good Hope ~ first Cape plant taken to Europe ~ The Dutch East India Company ~ Cape plants for sale
Chapter 2
The Company’s Garden
Jan van Riebeeck and the founding of Cape Town ~ scurvy, fresh vegetables and all kinds of weather ~ the first Cape herbarium
Chapter 3
God and Friendly Nature Combined
Governor van der Stel ~ drawings from an expedition to Namaqualand ~ Jan Commelijn and the Amsterdam apothecaries’ garden ~ Carl Linnaeus, the father of taxonomy
Chapter 4
Men of Questionable Sanity
Kew and the Cape ~ Sir Joseph Banks ~ James Cook and Resolution ~ Anders Sparrman, the enthusiastic Swede ~ Carl Thunberg and the Flora Capensis
Chapter 5
The Scots Garden-Hand
Francis Masson, Kew’s first international collector ~ Thunberg and Masson’s joint expeditions ~ ox wagons, plant presses, seeds and bulbs ~ winter rains and spring flowers ~ Masson’s Massonia ~ Sparrman returns
Chapter 6
A View to Gratify a Curiosity
William Paterson and the Countess of Strathmore ~ baboons and extinct zebras ~ Masson under suspicion ~ travel costs ~ Masson leaves the Cape at last
Chapter 7
A Collection of Collectors
The royal gardeners of Vienna ~ James Niven, another Scot ~ the well-travelled William Burchell ~ the unfulfilled James Bowie ~ botanical missionaries ~ William Harvey and his Flora Capensis ~ Marianne North, itinerant artist
Chapter 8
From Cape to Cultivation
Development and demands of European gardens ~ stoves, glasshouses and nurseries ~ a multitude of Cape plants in pots and print ~ the first greenhouse effect
Chapter 9
The Treasures of this Beautiful Tribe
Cape bulbs in cultivation ~ Gladiolus ~ Freesia ~ Agapanthus ~ Nerine ~ Ixia ~ Sparaxis ~ Amaryllis and more
Chapter 10
Cross-pollinating in Upper Tooting
The rise and fall of Cape heaths and proteas, from obsession to obscurity
Chapter 11
This Good-tempered Flower
Pelargoniums and their remarkable contribution to the window-boxes (and pots, borders and beds) of the world
Chapter 12
Bear’s Ears and Garden Diamonds
More garden plants from the Cape cornucopia – Streptocarpus ~ Nemesia ~ Osteospermum ~ Gazania ~ Lobelia ~ orchids and others
Chapter 13
The Smallest Kingdom
Natural history of the Cape Floral Kingdom ~ landscape, climate and ecology ~ fynbos and fire ~ conservation and the alien curse
Chapter 14
Back to its Roots
Modern-day collecting ~ new species still discovered ~ contemporary research ~ Kirstenbosch ~ The Botanical Society of South Africa