Stories

Guest post by explorer Dr. John Hemming The mighty tropical rain forests of the Amazon are the world’s richest terrestrial ecosystem. And the most diverse of those forests are in Peru, on the eastern slopes of the Andes – because this region gets the most rainfall sweeping up the great river, and because it enjoys greater diversity from altitude. The first great botanist to study this magnificent flora was a young Englishman called Richard Spruce. Botanist Richard Spruce  A self-taught Botanist Spruce was born in rural Yorkshire, the son of a primary-school teacher, but his family could not afford to keep him in school after age fourteen. So he was self-taught, helped by his dad. He early developed a passion for plants, starting with the mosses and tiny liverworts (hepatics) of the Yorkshire moors. Spruce’s collections, published papers, and correspondence caught the attention of Britain’s leading botanists. In 1849 the director of Kew Gardens suggested that he should go out to the Amazon to collect professionally in that richest environment. He would join two young, and equally brilliant, English naturalists who had gone there in the previous year: Alfred Russel Wallace and Henry Bates. Hemming's New Book: Naturalists in Paradise I have just published a book, Naturalists in Paradise: Wallace, Bates and Spruce in the Amazon, about these three amazing men. Each of them became one of the greatest scientists in Amazonia during the nineteenth century. They were true explorers – spending between them thirty years non-stop in those forests and rivers, exploring new territory, identifying thousands of species new to science, writing terrific popular and scientific works, making superb collections (still prized by museums), developing important theories, and having Indiana-Jones style adventures. But they were totally modest, unaware of how tough they were or the magnitude of their achievements.