Description
Seamus O’Brien’s Keynote Presentations from our RSBG 2025 Symposium
Video 1: “Travels in Yunnan: Frank Kingdon Ward Territory”
Yunnan province in western China is home to half of all China’s plant and animal species and 25 distinct ethnic groups. This lecture is based on an 18-day visit in June/July 2024, peak flowering season during the height of the Indian monsoon, retracing routes taken by Captain Frank Kingdon Ward in 1911 and 1913. From the ancient city of Lijiang, the lecture recounts visits to the Tibetan frontier region to see sacred peaks painted by the blossoms of rhododendrons and blue poppies, lakes fringed by meadows full of candelabra primulas and glades of giant Himalayan lilies beneath a diverse canopy of ancient trees.
Video 2: “The Moores of Glasnevin” : The Irish Rhododendron Story
David Moore and his son Sir Frederick Moore were the greatest Directors of the Royal (now National) Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin in Dublin, between them the managed the gardens from 1838 to 1922, by which time the only botanic gardens that could match it for botanical and horticultural excellence were its sister gardens at Kew and Edinburgh. From its earliest years Glasnevin was involved in the introduction of Rhododendron species to British, Irish, and European gardens, introducing Rhododendron arboreum subsp. zeylanicum to cultivation in 1836 and continuing the process further through thecollections of the Great Plant Hunters like E. H. Wilson, Joseph Rock, George Forrest, Captain Frank Kingdon Ward, and those of Lady Charlotte WheelerCue from Mount Victoria in the Chin Hills of Myanmar (Burma).
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Seamus O’Brien Bio
“Seamus O’Brien is Head Gardener at the National Botanic Gardens, Kilmacurragh, Co. Wicklow, the country estate and rural annex of the National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin in Dublin. He received his formal horticultural training at Glasnevin and also holds an International Diploma in Botanic Gardens Management from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
He has been Head Gardener of several notable Irish gardens with historic plant collections, including Glanleam on Valentia Island, Co. Kerry famed for its southern hemisphere trees and shrubs, and Beech Park in Clonsilla, then renowned for one of the largest collections of herbaceous and alpine plants in Britain and Ireland. He returned to Glasnevin as a staff member in February 2000 and from there moved to manage the gardens at Kilmacurragh in May 2006.
He has travelled extensively across the globe to study plants in their native habitats, most notably to China, Nepal, Tibet, California, Bhutan, Myanmar, Chile, Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, and, in more recent times to India, including successive trips to the Sikkim Himalaya