Women Who Shaped Garden History
The history of plant hunting is often told as a story of men venturing into jungles and mountains, but women played significant roles as collectors, cultivators, and classifiers of new plant species. Some traveled the world; others built extraordinary collections at home.
Plant hunting was a dangerous and expensive pursuit, and the social barriers facing women travelers were formidable. Nevertheless, from the 17th century onward, women found ways to contribute: by collecting plants on their estates, by funding expeditions, by classifying and cultivating specimens that others brought back, and — increasingly — by traveling themselves.
Ellen Willmott was one of the most prolific plant collectors in history, growing over 100,000 species at Warley Place. She funded plant-collecting expeditions and corresponded with collectors around the world. Her knowledge of plants was so detailed that she was one of the first women elected to the Linnean Society. She was also famous for secretly scattering seeds of the giant sea holly (Eryngium giganteum) in gardens she visited — the plant is still sometimes called “Miss Willmott's Ghost.”
Jane Colden was the first woman to systematically classify the plants of an American region. Working in colonial New York, she documented over 300 species and corresponded with Linnaeus's circle. Marianne North combined painting with plant collection on her travels across five continents, bringing back specimens as well as paintings.
In the contemporary period, Margaret Mee combined plant collection with conservation advocacy in the Brazilian Amazon. Her expeditions were not about bringing plants back to European gardens but about documenting and preserving species threatened by deforestation. This shift — from collection to conservation — reflects a broader change in how we think about the relationship between gardens and the natural world.