The Amazing Case of Dr Ward by Jackie Kerin and Tull Suwannakit Reviewed by Loraine Callow, Program Development Officer, Williamstown Botanic Gardens, Victoria When you peel a banana, bite into a pear, when you smell a rose, pop a fuchsia bud, or scrape your knee climbing an old pine tree, do you ever wonder how these plants came to this country? This is the question author Jackie Kerin poses in the story of The Amazing Case of Dr Ward. Intrigued by ‘exotic’ plants and with a passion for endemic landscape, Jackie explains what seeded the idea for her book, ‘I was listening to an Acknowledgment of Country being delivered in a park in Melbourne by Wemba Wemba‑Wergaia man, Dean Stewart. While Dean created in our minds the landscape of the Indigenous past, in reality there was not an Australian plant in sight. The land that surrounded me had been altered irrevocably. Was this change incremental, or was it swift?’ A little digging and Jackie stumbled into the story of the Wardian case – a glass and wooden box – that changed the world. And the answer to her question – the change was ‘swift.’ Dr Nathanial Bagshaw Ward was an English doctor and a passionate plant collector. However, the smog-filled air of his London home thwarted his plant-growing passion and he was limited to cultivating plants under glass. Meanwhile, it came to Dr Ward’s attention that others were having problems with their plants on board ships where salt spray, rather than smog, was the problem. It was a time of imperial expansion on a scale previously unimaginable and the transportation of plants was critical to the success of the remote colonies and the establishment of exotic plants in England. Dr Ward trialled various schemes in his home in the East End. Then, in 1833, with the help of his friend, Captain Mallard, he planned a decisive experiment sending plants in glass cases from London to the Sydney Botanic Gardens, and back again. The trial was a triumph. Within months, Wardian Cases, filled with plants, were being delivered around the globe; gardens, farms and landscapes would be transformed forever.
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THE BOTANIC GARDENer | ISS 58 Winter 2022
