The Flower of Empire: An Amazonian Water Lily, the Quest to Make it Bloom, and the World it Created by Tatiana Holway (review)

Tatiana Holway offers a rich and expansive story concerning the discovery and eventual cultivation of one of the nineteenth century's most famous flowers, the gigantic water lily, Victoria Regia. The story begins with the discovery of the flower in British Guiana (now Guyana) by the German botanist Robert Schomburgk, who was working under the auspices of the Royal Geographical Society in London to report on the geography and resources of the new British colony. The story unfolds with the transportation of the flower, both physically in the berth of ships and textually in letters, reports, and ultimately the periodical press. And finally, it culminates in the construction of the spectacular Crystal Palace for the Great Exhibition of 1851, which the architect and gardener Joseph Paxton based on the structure and design of Victoria Regia's petals and leaves.

The story is spectacular, and it is fittingly told through the lens of periodical reports regarding the various stages of debate, cultivation, and broader cultural effects of the flower throughout the fourteen years between its discovery in 1837 and the Great Exhibition in 1851. Holway utilizes a range of periodicals and pays particular attention to the use of gardening periodicals, such as Paxton's Magazine of Botany and Gardiner's Magazine. The strength of her book, in fact, lies in her focus on the construction and use of this particular periodical genre and on how famous botanists such as John Lindley, William Hooker, Joseph Paxton, and George Loddgies used these periodicals to debate, circulate, and finally formalize the popular and scientific value of the new flower. Holway successfully demonstrates how periodicals created and reinforced the spectacle of Schomburgk's discovery in 1837, even though the flower was in fact discovered at least thirty years earlier. The difference was that earlier explorers failed to communicate their discoveries widely; periodicals in this story are thus linchpins in the construction of botanical knowledge.

The primary problem of The Flower of Empire concerns Holway's use of periodical history. For example, discussion of the construction of Paxton's journal, the constitution of its readership, and the motivation behind its formation is missing. The story Holway tells could pave the way for considerable insights into key concerns of periodical history, such as the periodical's place in developing and maintaining a global empire; the importance of spectacle in the production of scientific events in popular contexts; and the growing importance of visual media outlets, such as the Illustrated London News, to the transportation and effective communication of inherently visual objects, such as Victoria Regia. Unfortunately, the narrative overlooks these concerns.

The other problem relates to Holway's use of the history of science. Nineteenth-century botanical collecting and its relationship to empire have been thoroughly examined in secondary literature, a recent and excellent example being Daniela Bleicmar's Visible Empire: Botanical Expeditions and Visual Culture in the Hispanic Enlightenment (University of Chicago Press, 2012). Similarly, the story of the Great Exhibition and the Crystal Palace is well known, and Holway's narrative unfortunately fails to provide any new perspective. Victoria Regia and the Great Exhibition would lend themselves well to a discussion of the importance of print media—particularly the periodical press—to the production and reproduction of spectacle and, moreover, how this relates to the production and reproduction of scientific evidence. Ultimately, The Flower of Empire offers an interesting and engaging story about a spectacular flower and its movement around the world, but it fails to engage in broader historiographical debates in either periodical history or the history of science.