Biography
After his retirement from the British Royal Navy, Rear-Admiral Paul Furse took the opportunity to pursue his love of botany and botanical art on a full-time basis. Between 1960 and 1966, therefore, Furse and his wife, Polly, made four long journeys in Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan, collecting bulbs and perennials for the Royal Horticultural Society's garden at Wisley and herbarium specimens for Kew. Their efforts brought hundreds of new plants into cultivation including the yellow crown imperial, Fritillaria raddeana Regel (from the Kopet Dagh on the borders of Turkmenia), Iris afghanica Wendelbo (from the Salang Pass, north of Kabul), and, from the Black Sea coast, Iris lazica Albov.
Furse was born at Yockley near Camberley, Surrey. His father, a portrait painter, died in the same week Furse was born. His mother, Dame Katherine Furse, later became the director of the Women's Royal Naval Service. As a child Furse spent much time in the Alps, where his interest in plants may have burgeoned. His great aunt was the botanical artist Marianne North and his grandmother was also an accomplished painter of flowers.
Paul entered the Navy aged 13 and married Polly Rathbone in 1928. They both spent their spare time painting, with Furse seeking out gardens for inspiration. They mounted an exhibition of their work in 1937, but all the paintings on show were lost in the Blitz.
Furse served in the Americas and Europe during the Second World War, after which he was stationed in Bath and London, before retiring aged 55. His first post-retirement expedition was to Turkey and Iran in 1960, destinations decided upon in conjunction with the Royal Horticultural Society botanist Patrick Synge, who accompanied the Furses. This trip resulted in just over 900 collections. The Furses collected more than 3,100 specimens in the same countries in 1962. Their 1964 and 1966 expeditions took them further east, as far as the Hindu Kush and the Wakhan Corridor, where they gathered nearly 4,200 specimens.
The Furses' expeditions were recounted in the Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society and some of their collections discussed in The Lily Yearbook and The Iris Yearbook. Botanists working on the Flora of Turkey and Flora Iranica studied the dried collections and Kew holds Paul Furse's meticulous field notes and botanical paintings. He was awarded the Royal Horticultural Society's Victoria Medal of Honour for his work, and the Order of the British Empire and Companion of the Order of the Bath.
Sources:
M. Alam, 2009, "Plant Collectors in Afghanistan", Bulletin de la Société vaudoise des Sciences naturelles, 91(3): 330
K. Strange, 2007, "Paul Furse and his Plant Collections at Kew", Curtis's Botanical Magazine, 24(1): 71-80.
