The Wardian Case: How a Simple Box Moved Plants and Changed the World

The story of a nineteenth-century invention (essentially a tiny greenhouse) that allowed for the first time the movement of plants around the world, feeding new agricultural industries, the commercial nursery trade, botanic and private gardens, invasive species, imperialism, and more.

Roses, jasmine, fuchsia, chrysanthemums, and rhododendrons bloom in gardens across the world, and yet many of the most common varieties have roots in Asia. How is this global flowering possible? In 1829, surgeon and amateur naturalist Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward placed soil, dried leaves, and the pupa of a sphinx moth into a sealed glass bottle, intending to observe the moth hatch. But when a fern and meadow grass sprouted from the soil, he accidentally discovered that plants enclosed in glass containers could survive for long periods without watering. After four years of experimentation in his London home, Ward created traveling glazed cases that would be able to transport plants around the world. Following a test run from London to Sydney, Ward was proven correct: the Wardian case was born, and the botanical makeup of the world's flora was forever changed.

In our technologically advanced and globalized contemporary world, it is easy to forget that not long ago it was extremely difficult to transfer plants from place to place, as they often died from mishandling, cold weather, and ocean salt spray. In this first book on the Wardian case, Luke Keogh leads us across centuries and seas to show that Ward's invention spurred a revolution in the movement of plants--and that many of the repercussions of that revolution are still with us, from new industries to invasive plant species. From the early days of rubber, banana, tea, and cinchona cultivation--the last used in the production of the malaria drug quinine--to the collecting of beautiful and exotic flora like orchids in the first great greenhouses of the United States Botanic Garden in Washington, DC, and England's Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, the Wardian case transformed the world's plant communities, fueled the commercial nursery trade and late nineteenth-century imperialism, and forever altered the global environment.

Author: Luke Keogh
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 11/17/2020
Pages: 288
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.35lbs
Size: 9.20h x 6.30w x 1.00d
ISBN: 9780226713618


Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 05/25/2020
Kirkus Reviews 06/01/2020
Choice 06/01/2021

About the Author
Luke Keogh is a curator and historian interested in the global movement of plants in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Among his many awards and prizes is the Sargent Award from the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University. Currently he is senior curator at the National Wool Museum in Geelong, Australia, and an honorary research fellow at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia. In 2020, he is fellow of the 4A Lab, Berlin, an innovative humanities research lab supported by the Max Planck Institute for Art History in Florence and the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation.


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