Exotic plants with local roots
We're always finding fascinating things in the archive collections and recently this fascinating photograph was brought to our attention. It shows plants being packed into stout straw-filled crates in April 1907 at James Cypher & Sons, Exotic Nursery on Queen’s Road in Cheltenham, catalogue reference D11492/1
Cypher’s specialised in high-end plants such as orchids, and they enjoyed a global reputation – the plants here were all being sent to Japan. The transport of these plants was an impressive feat in itself! After being loaded into the special wagon (designed to be carried on top of a flat-bed railway wagon), the plants were taken to Cheltenham’s Lansdown railway station, then sent via the Midland & South-Western Junction Railway down through the Cotswolds to Southampton. Here they were unloaded from the wagon and put onboard a fast ship for an Atlantic crossing to one of Canada’s east coast ports. In Canada, they were placed on one of the Canadian trans-continental railways and sent cross-county to Vancouver, where the plants were put onboard a second ship for the next leg of the journey, crossing the northern Pacific to Tokyo. The plants were sent as ‘express freight’, which cost anything from £10 to £80 (around £800 to £6,300 today!). The final leg of their epic journey was the distribution to their recipients – and among these was Viscount Foukouba, a noted Japanese horticulturalist and the director of the Mikado's Imperial Gardens.