Fortune, traveller and botanist, became superintendent of the indoor-plant department in the Royal Horticultural Society's garden at Chiswick. In 1842 he was sent as collector to the society to China. He visited Java on his way out in 1843 and Manilla in 1845, returning to England in 1846 after many adventures from shipwreck, pirates, hostile natives, and fever. He entered the city of Loo-chow, then closed to Europeans, disguised as a Chinaman. Among the many beautiful and interesting plants which he then sent home were the double yellow rose and the fan-palm (Chamærops Fortunei) that bear his name, the Japanese anemone, many varieties of the tree-peonies, long cultivated in North China, the kumquat (Citrus japonica), Weigela rosea, and Dicentra spectabilis, besides various azaleas and chrysanthemums. He was appointed curator of the Chelsea Botanical Garden, but had to resign in 1848 on his return to China to collect plants and seeds of the tea-shrub on behalf of the East India Company. In 1851 he successfully introduced two thousand plants and seventeen thousand sprouting seeds of the tea into the north-west provinces of India, as described in this work.

First edition. 8vo,xvi, 398 pp., additional pictorial title printed in red, map, 3 full-page plates (2 tinted lithographs), illustrations in the text, contemporary half calf gilt, green morocco lettering piece, a fine copy.