In addition, he is a well-known plant explorer, author and public speaker.

In the 1890s, Lathrop met a young biologist named David Fairchild who he persuaded to become a plant explorer.

"It's not like the old days, when plant explorers went out and stripped the countryside," Mr. Lee said.

The collection includes 775,000 items, from books and botanical prints to seed catalogs and a plant explorer's sneakers.

By 1913, plant explorers found the fungus in China and Japan - on Asian chestnuts resistant to the disease.

Robinson's were judged "the finest begonias to be grown anywhere in the world" by plant explorer and botanist David Fairchild.

Such puzzles are what drew the great plant explorers of the 16th century into the wilderness.

It was named after his good friend David Fairchild (1869-1954), one of the great plant explorers.

He named the public garden after the plant explorer David Fairchild, who helped introduce Americans to everything from dates to cotton.

Scientific names for many plants immortalize distinguished botanists, plant explorers, doctors and even some rulers.