Biography

British horticulturalist and plant collector Charles Maries discovered more than 500 plants in Japan, China and Taiwan, while working on behalf of Veitch & Sons. He spent his later career designing and overseeing gardens in India.

Maries was born in Hampton Lucy, Warwickshire, where the headmaster of his school, Rev. George Henslow, inspired him to develop a passion for plants. (Henslow was later Professor of Botany at the Royal Horticultural Society.) Maries was the youngest of five brothers, two of whom followed their father and grandfather in becoming cobblers. Richard, the fourth brother, shared Charles' interest in plants and set up as a florist and nurseryman in Lytham, Lancashire. Charles joined him in 1869 and began an association with Martha Kerr, the sister of Richard's wife. The pair would later marry.

Charles moved on in 1876 to work with the large and successful James Veitch nursery in Chelsea, London, as a foreman. Being familiar with plants originating in Asia, from his time at his brother's nursery, Maries' potential as a collector in the Far East was recognised by Harry Veitch. It was not long, therefore, before he was asked to go plant-hunting in China and Japan, joining the intrepid line of Veitch employees who have contributed thousands of plants to British horticulture.

Maries left for Shanghai in February 1877, proceeding to Hong Kong and the mountains near Ningbo. He went on to Nagasaki, Japan, in April 1877, where he was to concentrate on obtaining seeds of coniferous trees. He then travelled the length of Honshu, from Tokyo and Yokohama to Nikko and then Aomori in the far north, from whence he took a steamer to the northern island, Hokkaido. It was in a garden in Aomori that he first laid eyes on Abies mariesii Mast. and found nearby the already discovered but not introduced Abies sachalinensis Mast. In Hakodate, Hokkaido, he collected material from Styrax obassia Siebold & Zucc., and in the mountainous region around Sapporo, found the climbers Schizophragma hydrangeoides Siebold & Zucc. and Actinidia kolomikta Maxim. Maries stayed in Hokkaido until October 1877, making his base at Horoizumi. Among his other finds were the shrub Enkianthus campanulatus G.Nicholson and the Japanese snowball bush, Viburnum plicatum "Mariesii".

As well as his horticultural collections, Maries gathered herbarium specimens and entomological material, and returned to Hong Kong via Niigata and Yokohama in early 1878, thereafter spending a few weeks on Formosa (Taiwan). His next task was to explore the great Yangtze Valley, which would yield more botanical material. On Mount Lushan near Jiujiang he found Lilium speciosum var. gloriosoides, for example. Sunstroke forced Maries back to the coast and he spent the rest of 1878 in Japan again (Hokkaido and Honshu), before returning to China in early 1879. This time he reached as far as the Yichang gorges, where he gathered the witch hazel Hamamelis mollis Oliv. ex Forb. & Hemsl.

Maries' next destination would be India, for which he left in 1880 to take up the post of Superintendent of the Gardens of the Maharajah of Darbhanga (having been recommended by James Veitch). Maries was charged with designing and planting the elaborate garden, which was to surround a new palace for the maharajah in Bihar. He disembarked at Calcutta in November 1880, followed by his fiancée, Martha Kerr, whom he married in St John's Church, Calcutta, a year later. Their three children were all born in India over the next six years.

Maries spent a decade at Darbhanga, constructing a magnificent garden populated with exotic species, as well as an English kitchen garden and orchard. He continued to collect wild plants, for example gathering orchids around Darjeeling in 1884, and continued to send regular written accounts to the British horticultural journals, and seeds to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. He also developed a strong interest in insects and birds, and became an expert on northern Indian ornithology. Harry Veitch proposed Maries for fellowship of the Linnean Society in 1887, citing especially his knowledge of entomology.

Maries moved to Gwalior in 1890 as superintendent of the gardens of the local maharaja. The following years saw him deal with the challenging task of developing a garden in a hot, dry climate, while continuing to indulge his passion for bird collecting. He also worked on a flora of Gwalior and prepared an illustrated monograph, Cultivated mangoes of India (unpublished). Maries received the Royal Horticultural Society's Victoria Medal in 1897. He died in Gwalior, having fallen ill with kidney stones in early 1902. His name lives on in numerous plant epithets.

Sources:
Anon., 1902, Gardeners' Chronicle, ser. 3, 32: 360-361
P. Bowe, 2002, "Charles Maries: garden superintendent to two Indian maharajahs", Garden History, 30(1), 84-94
E. Bretschneider, 1898, History of European Discoveries in China: 741
S. Heriz-Smith, 1989, "Adventures of a plant hunter", Country Life, 9 March 1989
R.J. Howgego, 2009, "Maries, Charles (1851-1902)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online edn:
www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/96790, accessed 17 December 2011.