ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

A Captain’s Box: Moving Seeds of Araucaria araucana, from Chile to the UK, c.1827

• In Event: Plant Transfers Beyond Botany: Histories of Human-mediated Long-distance Dispersals to and from Latin America

English Abstract

In 1834, Captain T. Bagnold received a Large Silver Medal for transporting one hundred piñones (Araucaria araucana seeds) from Chile to London around 1827. The award was announced in the Transactions of the Society, Instituted at London, for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce (1833–1834), noting that the seeds had arrived in a germinating state. Although the Captain had requested instructions for shipping seeds from John Lindley, secretary of the Royal Society of London, he ultimately pursued a different approach. By using a box of wine filled with soil, Captain T. Bagnold claimed recognition for his innovative and successful system. However, he was not the first to use this mechanism effectively, as similar practices circulated among sailors, traders, and nurseryman.

By delving into this transplantation story, this paper unfolds the entanglements between Spanish and British imperial transplanting practices, proposing that they influenced each other’s techniques rather than operating as separate traditions. Drawing on society transactions, correspondence, and printed instructions, the paper also illuminates the connections between learned societies, traders, and the ornamental plant market in the early nineteenth century. These sources offer valuable insights into soil and seed knowledge, shaped by the botanical character of the seeds and translated into specific transportation devices. Through the close reading of a single box, this paper argues that long-distance plant movement depended as much on material experimentation, improvisation, and shared practical knowledge as on scientific authority.

Author

• Camila Medina Novoa, ETH Zürich