Belstone Village Hall Thursday 26th January 7.30pm ‘In the Footsteps of Marianne North and Charles Darwin in Chile’
This talk follows the journey of Sue Minter and Penny Hammond as they travelled through Chile in 2008.
After visiting the island of Chiloe and the Chilean ‘Lake District’ they travelled via many national parks to Valdivia. Here they discovered at the local museum that they were retracing many of the steps of Charles Darwin on his famous voyage of the Beagle in 1831. The museum also held letters written by the famous Victorian oil painter Marianne North (she of the gallery at Kew) on her last voyage to paint in the wild in 1884 and we realised we were following her too!
Both keen photographers, we attempted to photograph living plants of the species both wrote of or painted as we travelled north towards Valpairaiso and La Campana National Park.
Many of the plants featured make an important contribution to our garden flora, especially in the south west and many introduced via the Veitch Nursery in Exeter by plant collector William Lobb.
Sue Minter had hoped to go to Chile on sabbatical from her role as Curator of the Chelsea Physic Garden in 1998 but was foiled by the Pinochet regime and the inability to get insurance. She returned with Penny Hammond, then Head Gardener for the National Trust at Saltram House near Plymouth, some ten years later.
The club welcomes new members, guests and visitors so why not come along? At £15 membership for the year or £3 per meeting, it is very good value for money.
Contact Robin: for further information about the club.
