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John Edgerley was a pioneering botanist in New Zealand. ==Biography== John Edgerley was born about 1814, probably in Upper Arley, then Staffordshire England and worked as a gardener at Arley Hall. He migrated to New Zealand in 1834 on the sailing ship Emma Eugenia ex the Downs, arrived en route at Sydney 10 May 1835 and reached the Hokianga 30 July. He spent the years to 1841 at Horeke in the Hokianga as gardener/botanist for Lieutenant Thomas McDonnell, who had been appointed an additional British Resident in New Zealand - they had travelled out together. He brought plants with him from England and when Edward Wakefield visited Horeke in 1839 he found a flourishing garden. There are records in England of John Edgerley sending plant specimens and live plants to Kew Gardens, Mr. A. B. Lambert and the Earl of Mountnorris. Auckland Museum has 8 letters written by John Edgerley to A B Lambert, J. Smith (curator at Kew) and Sir William Hooker concerned with the collecting of New Zealand plants for English collections, including “the royal gardens”. Subsequently Edgerley returned to England with both live and dried plants and was at Arley Hall again in April 1842. When John Edgerley sailed for England in 1842 he had taken back a collection of New Zealand plants for Kew Gardens. In return the director of Kew, Sir William Hooker, undertook to provide him with a wide range of flowering shrubs (six casefuls) for setting up his nursery on this land in Epsom. Edgerley requested the following plants: “Rhododendrons, camellias, arbutus or strawberry tree, laurustine, Portugal laurel, common laurel, azaleas, a plant or two of lilac, wisteria sinensis, tree paeonia, with a few plants of fuchsias – corymbiflora if you can spare it, ribes sanguinea, magonlia grandiflora, deutzia scabra, box for hedging, with a few good roses, white moss if you can spare it, ajuga japonica, cedar of Lebanon, jasminum…acorns, chestnuts, hawthorn berries or any other seed you thought would germinate, also a small collection of good flower seeds with fir cones” . Although roses, flowering seeds and annuals had been imported by early missionaries, their planting concentrated on practical plants such as fruit trees, shelter trees and crops. Certainly this was the first importation of rhododendrums, camellias, azaleas, lilac and wisteria into New Zealand . He married Sarah Newnham at Upper Arley on 27, December, 1842 and they travelled on the Tyne arriving at Hobart August 1843 then coming on to Auckland. It was possible that he leased some land immediately in the Epsom/Newmarket area as in the police census of 1844, he was living in a raupo hut in that location. John Edgerley brought a collection of items out with him including a set of blasting tools, candle snuffers, a tinder box and a humane man trap, these items are now in the Auckland War Memorial Museum. A New Zealand Crown Grant, of land in the area now called Epsom, dated 21 December 1844 for 6 acres 2 roods was issued to John Kelly and Frederick Whitaker. This land was transferred to John Edgerley on 15 December 1851. On 10 June 1848 John Edgerley obtained a crown grant of 5 acres adjoining this Kelly/Whitaker grant. At the land in Epsom, including the land now known as 74 and 66 Gillies Ave, he established a nursery which he worked till he died in 1849 at 35 years. By May 1846 he was advertising a large variety of fruit trees for sale, including a dozen varieties of apples at “Eden Nursery”. By 1848 he was advertising twenty four types of apple trees, six types of plum trees, twenty four types of cherry trees, four types of pear trees, five types of peach trees, seven types of nectarines and three types of apricot trees as well as a variety of other plants. Two uncommon New Zealand shrubs bear Edgerley’s name. Pomaderris prunifolia Fenzl var edgerleyi and Pseudopanax edgerleyi. Edgerley served as a judge at the first Agricultural and Horticultural Show, held on 18 December 1843 at Mr Hart’s Exchange hotel. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「John Edgerley」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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