FLOWER HUNTERS: JOSEPH BANKS.

Joseph Banks: The Gentleman Who Followed the Green Trails of the World

From the series: Interesting Stories of Plant Explorers

In the age when the map of the world still had blank spaces and the oceans carried more mystery than certainty, there lived a young Englishman whose curiosity was rooted not in gold, nor conquest, but in leaves. Sir Joseph Banks, born into privilege in 1743, could easily have lived a comfortable life amid London’s drawing rooms. Instead, he felt an irresistible pull toward the unknown rhythms of nature — a calling that would make him one of history’s greatest plant explorers.

The Voyage That Changed Botanical History

In 1768, when Captain James Cook prepared to sail to the Pacific on the Endeavour, Banks saw an opportunity that burned like a comet. He funded his own scientific staff, filled the ship with botanical tools, and set sail on a journey that would reshape the world’s understanding of plants.

Before the Endeavour had even left the Atlantic, Banks was already crawling across wild coasts, notebooks tucked under his arm. But nothing prepared him for Tahiti.

There, surrounded by forests that seemed to bloom out of dreams, Banks and his team gathered hundreds of plant specimens no European eyes had ever seen — towering breadfruit trees, fragrant flowers with petals like wax, vines that grew in spirals like living sculptures.

The Tahitians watched with amusement at first. But soon they began accompanying the Europeans into the jungle, laughing at how the “plant-hungry men” would drop everything at the sight of a new flower.

Botany in the Shadow of Danger

Adventure, however, was never far from risk.
Off the coast of Australia, the Endeavour struck the Great Barrier Reef and began sinking. Chaos swept the decks. Banks and his staff worked frantically — not to save gold or instruments, but their plant collections.

When the ship was finally repaired after weeks stranded in hostile territory, Banks had lost many specimens, but the most precious survived. “Our plants still live,” he wrote, exhausted but triumphant.

A New Eden: Australia

When the expedition reached Botany Bay, Banks felt as though the earth had opened a secret door. Kangaroos leapt like phantoms in the distance, trees shed bark instead of leaves, and many plants bore forms so unusual that the European mind struggled to classify them.

Cook named the place Botany Bay in honor of Banks and Daniel Solander — a rare tribute to botanists in an age obsessed with conquering territory.

The Empire’s Quiet Architect

Returning to England, Banks didn’t rest. Instead, he became the unseen architect of botanical exchange. He advised kings, influenced colonial plantations, and encouraged the global movement of crops — breadfruit to the Caribbean, eucalyptus to Europe, tea studies in China.

From London, he turned Kew Gardens into the botanical hub of the world, a green empire of its own kind.

A Legacy Written in Petals and Pages

While many explorers are remembered for battles and borders, Banks is remembered for something gentler, yet equally transformative: curiosity. He believed the world’s plants were not just resources but stories — threads connecting distant peoples and ecosystems.

His papers record more than 30,000 plant specimens. But the real treasure is the spirit that guided him — the willingness to travel beyond comfort, to walk into untouched forests with nothing but wonder as a compass.

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In the late 1760s, as astronomers across Europe prepared for the rare Transit of Venus — an event that comes in pairs separated by more than a century, last seen in 1761 and due again in 1769 — the British Crown devised a voyage that blended science with secrecy. The Transit promised to unlock the geometry of the solar system and help calculate the distance between the Earth and the Sun, but for the Admiralty, it was also a chance to send a ship into uncharted waters. Thus, the HMS Endeavour, a sturdy coal-carrying collier, was refitted for a grand circumnavigation, carrying orders sealed in wax. After observing the celestial event, the captain was instructed to break the seal and follow the secret directive: sail south to 40° latitude in search of the long-rumored southern continent.

Commanding the voyage was Captain James Cook, joined by Charles Green, the expedition’s astronomer responsible for observing the Transit of Venus, and guided by the precision of John Harrison’s marine chronometer, a device that promised unprecedented accuracy in determining longitude at sea. Among the civilian scientific party was Joseph Banks, just 21 years old, immensely wealthy, and connected to the royal family, born on 13 February 1743. Educated at Eton, he first discovered his passionate interest in botany wandering the school grounds. His early studies at Oxford brought him under the influence of experts such as John Sibthorp, Professor Martin, and the mathematician-botanist Israel Lyons. Banks was no stranger to exploration: before joining Cook, he had already ventured out on his first expeditionwith Constantine Phipps in April 1766, traveling to the wild coasts of Newfoundland and Labrador in search of plants and natural curiosities.

Joining Joseph Banks on the voyage was an extraordinary scientific and artistic party assembled at his own expense. At the heart of it stood Daniel Solander, a brilliant 32-year-old botanist trained under Linnaeus himself. To capture the visual richness of the natural world, Banks brought two artists — Sydney Parkinson, whose speed and precision in sketching plants became legendary, and Alexander Buchan, whose talents extended to landscapes and ethnographic scenes. Banks also relied on Dr. Henry Spöring, a trained physician and naturalist who served as his secretary and proved invaluable as a skilled draughtsman. Supporting the scientific team were his two personal servants, James Roberts and Peter Briscoe, along with two “Negro servants,” Thomas Richmond and George Dorlton, who assisted with camp work and specimen handling. The travelling menagerie on board added to the unusual character of the expedition — two greyhounds, a goat, various cattle, sheep, pigs, poultry, and even a cat brought specifically to control the ship’s rodent population.

To support their scientific ambitions, Banks and his team carried a specialized collection of equipment tailored for both astronomy and natural history. For the celestial task of observing the Transit of Venus, precision transit-observation instruments were carefully packed and protected. For botanical work, they brought large casks filled with preserving liquids, essential for storing delicate plant parts before they dried or decayed, along with glass bottles for smaller specimens and even a rubber bottle for collecting fluids. Their observational toolkit included a telescope for distant landscapes and astronomical readings, and a microscope for examining the fine structures of leaves, insects, seeds, and marine life — tools that transformed the Endeavour into a floating scientific laboratory. Total weight was roughly 20 tons.

As historian Harold Carter, author of The Life of Banks, later remarked, “No people ever went to sea better fitted for the study of Natural History.” The Endeavour carried not only skilled scientists and artists, but an impressive intellectual arsenal — a fine library of natural history that Banks had assembled for reference during the voyage. Their practical equipment was equally formidable: machines, nets, trawls, drags, and hooks for collecting marine life from varying depths, and a powerful telescope capable of probing far into the ocean’s depths. Together, these tools made the expedition one of the most comprehensively prepared natural-history ventures ever to leave European shores.

In the weeks before the voyage, Joseph Banks was briefly entangled in a tender personal drama involving Miss Harriet Blosset, to whom he promised marriage, a union that ultimately never took place. With that unresolved chapter behind him, Banks joined the Endeavour as it sailed from Plymouth, a vessel carrying 94 men, of whom 41 would never live to see England again. The ship itself was modest — only 106 feet long and 29 feet wide — with just six cabins assigned to the principal officers and scientific staff. Life on board was governed by strict rationing: each man received 80 pounds of provisions, and to fight the ever-present threat of scurvy, the ship was stocked with an immense 7,860 pounds of sauerkraut, along with limited supplies of lemon juice and brandy. It was a cramped, perilous, and rigorously controlled world, yet one into which Banks stepped with unshaken resolve.

---------------Route to Cape Horn via Madeira

he Endeavour traced a long arc toward the southern oceans, first touching Madeira before sweeping across the Atlantic to Rio de Janeiro, then a Portuguese colony where officials showed firm resistance to supplying the ship. They allowed only Captain Cook to come ashore, but Banks, Solander, and the artist Sydney Parkinson managed to evade the watch, slipping onto land long enough to gather precious botanical specimens despite the restrictions. By January 1769, the ship reached the bleak wilds of Tierra del Fuego, a world of icy winds and ragged hills, where the crew nonetheless forged friendly relations with the local people and secured much-needed fresh water. Tragedy struck, however, when Banks’s two “Negro servants,” Thomas Richmond and George Dorlton, fell ill and died after drinking all the rumthey had carried ashore for warmth against the bitter cold. Their loss weighed heavily on the party as they prepared to face the harsh southward crossing toward Cape Horn.

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The Endeavour endured a brutal crossing of Cape Horn, battling ferocious winds before turning northwest into the open Pacific, where it drifted for nearly three months without sight of land. At last, in April 1769, the crew reached the welcoming shores of Tahiti, anchoring in the calm waters of Matavai Bay. Here Banks and his companions experienced a very different world — one of warmth, hospitality, and irresistible allure. Many among the crew took full advantage of the island’s sexual freedoms, while others submitted to the island custom of tattooing, marking their bodies with new symbols of identity. On 3 June, under clear skies, the scientific party made successful observations of the Transit of Venus, fulfilling the primary astronomical purpose of the voyage. Banks also became deeply interested in the breadfruit, recognizing its importance as a rich and easily cultivated food that could one day feed entire colonies. When the ship departed on 15 July, it carried not only thousands of specimens but also two new passengers: Tupaia, the revered Polynesian priest and navigator, and his young son, both of whom would prove invaluable. On 9 August 1769, the Endeavour turned south, sailing 1,500 miles in search of the mythical Terra Australis. After passing 40° south latitudein September with no continent in sight, Cook altered course westward, and soon the crew made their first landfall on New Zealand.

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In New Zealand — Key Discoveries and Achievements

When the Endeavour finally made landfall in New Zealand, Cook and his scientific team—including Joseph Banks, Solander, and artist Sydney Parkinson—began an intense period of exploration and documentation. Their stay would last six months, during which New Zealand was charted in remarkable detail, transforming European understanding of the region.

1. Discovery of New Zealand Spinach

• They encountered a new leafy plant later called New Zealand spinach (Tetragonia tetragonioides).

• With the ship’s sauerkraut stocks running low, Banks and the crew:

  • Cooked and pickled the plant, turning it into a valuable anti-scorbutic (anti-scurvy) food.

  • Its success made it a standard fresh green used aboard for the rest of the voyage.

• This was one of the earliest cases of field botany directly influencing naval health.

2. Discovery of New Zealand Flax (Phormium tenax)

• Another major find was New Zealand flax, a strong, versatile, fibrous plant.

• The Māori already used it for:

  • Rope

  • Clothing

  • Mats

  • Fishing nets

• Banks was impressed with its extraordinary durability and saw enormous industrial potential for the British Empire.

• He described it as a “most excellent plant,” with fibers stronger than European hemp.

• It eventually became a spectacular architectural ornamental plant in European gardens.

3. Six Months of Charting the Coast

• Cook spent half a year circumnavigating and surveying both the North and South Islands.

• His mapping was so precise that large parts remained standard for decades.

• He proved definitively that:

  • New Zealand was not part of the mythical southern continent (Terra Australis).

• The crew also engaged deeply with Māori communities, often with more success and mutual respect than in earlier encounters during the voyage.

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  On 10 April 1770, the Endeavour sighted the coast of Australia, and soon anchored in what is now Botany Bay near Sydney—although Cook initially named it “Stingray Bay” when they landed on 6 May 1770, owing to the abundance of stingrays. For Banks and Solander, however, the bay became a botanical treasure-house. They collected an astonishing range of new species, including eucalypts, mimosas, grevilleas, acacias, and the remarkable Banksias—around 80 species in all. Banksias, with their characteristic flower spikes and woody cones, ranged from shrubs to 30-metre trees; their copious nectar made them a key component of the local food web, and today they remain staples of the global cut-flower industry. Another striking discovery was the Illawarra flame tree (Brachychiton acerifolius, family Malvaceae), famous for its brilliant scarlet blossoms.

  Disaster struck on 11 June, at 11 o’clock, when the Endeavour ran aground on a reef off the coast of Queensland. The forced delay, however, provided new opportunities for exploration. While the ship was repaired at the mouth of the river later named the Endeavour, Banks’s party continued plant hunting and added more species to their collections: tulipwood, yellowwood, cedarwood, Moreton Bay pine, kangaroo grass (Themeda triandra), and the coastal cottonwood (Hibiscus tiliaceus), whose large bright yellow, scarlet-centred flowers grew in striking carpets along the shore.

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  With repairs completed on 10 August 1770, the Endeavour set sail once more, steering north-west toward the Dutch stronghold of Batavia (modern Jakarta). They spent nearly three months in this bustling but notoriously unhealthy port of the Dutch East Indies. Until then, the Endeavour’s company had remained remarkably healthy, but Batavia changed everything. Malaria claimed seven lives, including Tupia and his son, the ship’s surgeon, three seamen, and the servant of the astronomer Charles Green. A further twenty-three crewmen succumbed mainly to dysentery, among them Green himself. Banks and Solander also fell dangerously ill, most likely with typhoid, but ultimately recovered.

  Death had already thinned their ranks: Alexander Buchan, one of Banks’s artists, had died earlier in Tahiti after an epileptic seizure; and now, in Batavia, Henry Spöring and Sydney Parkinson also passed away. In the end, of the once-robust scientific retinue, only Joseph Banks, Daniel Solander, and Banks’s two personal servants survived to return to England in July 1771, nearly three years after their departure.

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  By the end of the epic circumnavigation, Joseph Banks had gathered nearly 1,300 plant species, among them an astonishing 110 new genera, a botanical legacy unmatched by any previous voyage. Every specimen was carried home as carefully prepared dried herbarium sheets, invaluable for science though not yet in a form suitable for wider horticultural trade. Over time, however, several of the plants associated with the expedition became celebrated garden favourites — notably the Hebe shrubs of New Zealand and the brilliantly coloured everlasting flower, Helichrysum bracteatum from Australia. On returning to England, Banks laid his vast botanical treasure before King George III, and many of the specimens found a permanent home at Kew, where they helped shape the future of botanical research and imperial horticulture.