Arnold Arboretum

The plant hunter who broke his leg for a lily the Arboretum did not enter in its collection for more than a century.

Collection: Boston: More Stories · USA · Open in OpenStreetMap

An old tree on the Arboretum’s grass · Daderot, CC0, Wikimedia Commons

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How the story begins

More than forty mules stepped over Ernest Wilson as he lay on a path in western China with his right leg broken in two places. He wrote in 1925: "more than forty of these animals stepped over my prostrate form." It was the fourth of September, 1910. A landslide had thrown his sedan chair toward the river. He told his men to splint the leg with the camera tripod. The path was too narrow for the mule train to turn around, so it came on, over him.

The rest is in the app. Peplos plays the full story when you reach the place. You can also listen ahead of time.