Maurice Mason – farmer, plant hunter and friend to the National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin, Dublin, Ireland

Maurice Mason is well documented as an accomplished amateur horticulturist and plant collector. His contributions to horticulture were recognised by his guest attendance at the Kew Guild Annual Dinner in 1960 and the award of the Royal Horticultural Society’s Victoria Medal of Honour in the same year. He was generous in sharing his plant collections, and this generosity extended to Ireland. His less well-known contribution to Irish horticulture through the National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin is outlined here.


Introduction
Leonard Maurice Mason ( Fig. 1) was born in 1921 to a farming family in the rural village of Fincham in Norfolk. The family had worked the land of their estate, Talbot Manor, for more than 200 years. Maurice Mason inherited his love of plants from his mother and grandmother and began gardening at the age of four, so by his 21st birthday, when Talbot Manor passed to him, he was well enough trained to be able to create his first garden. Talbot Manor was built on alkaline chalk, and after World War II Mason developed Larchwood, 100 acres (40.5 ha) of woodland not far from the estate, where he could grow ericaceous plants. The Talbot Manor garden already had extensive collections of trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants, and, with Mason's passion for both hardy and tender plants, by 1982 it covered 32 acres (12.5 ha) and contained glasshouses to hold his tropical and sub-tropical plant collections (Fig. 2).
The author of this paper spent his horticultural career at the National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin and became curious about Maurice Mason when he was tasked with management of the Stove Collection in the Curvilinear Range of Glasshouses in the late 1970s (Fig. 3). The stove was heated to a minimum of 15°C and damped down twice daily, in the morning and at close of the working day, to maintain humidity levels. The collection comprised various aroids, bromeliads and tropical plants, many of medicinal or economic importance. Each label featured, if known, the name of the donor of the plant or information on where it had been purchased. Mason's name was prominent, and thus began a long-term documentation of the relationship between Maurice Mason and Glasnevin.

Mason and Glasnevin
Mason's initial contact was Dr Thomas Walsh, Director of Glasnevin from 1944 to 1968. The two developed a close professional relationship, and later a firm friendship, which led to substantial introductions of plants to Glasnevin and a reciprocal transfer of plants to Talbot Manor. The story of this Irish-English relationship has been gleaned from a report containing personal reminiscences of Paul Meath, Glasshouse Foreman at Glasnevin and subsequently Curator from 1985 to 1992 (Meath, 1960), as well as from correspondence between Mason and Walsh (Mason, 1953(Mason, -1968Walsh, 1953Walsh, -1968 and between Mason and the author (McNally, 1990;Mason, 1990), and lists and registers of plants (National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin, 19131914. Paul Meath recounts that initial contact between Walsh and Mason is thought to have occurred while the latter was on a visit to Dublin during or after World War II to buy fodder for his cattle (Paul Meath, pers. comm.). A friendship developed between them, and they started to exchange plants. It was in June 1953 that the first donation of plants to Glasnevin was entered into the accession books as those 'noted by Dr Walsh at Chelsea Show, May 1953' . In June 1959 Mason spent a week in Ireland and came to Glasnevin for the first   Agriculture and Fisheries, 1953-54. The department, which had responsibility for the Gardens, stated in its report: 'The collections of exotic plants which had become somewhat depleted as a result of losses sustained during the war years -mainly because of inadequate or poor-quality fuel for maintaining the necessary temperatures and to a lesser extent because of the few commercial sources of supply from which these plants could be obtained -were greatly augmented by donations of plants received on an exchange basis from Mr. L.M. Mason, King's Lynn, Norfolk, England. ' By the middle of the 20th century, the plants at Talbot Manor were recognised as a substantial private collection, and Maurice Mason was highly respected in the horticultural world both as a cultivator and as a plant collector. He was a guest of honour at the Kew Guild Annual Dinner in 1960 and described in the report of the event as 'the leading amateur grower in the country' . The report makes mention of his travels and displays at RHS shows, his eight gold medals and more than seventy Awards of Merit. Indeed, in 1960 he received the Victoria Medal of Honour from the RHS (Anon., 1960).
Another interesting link between Glasnevin and the plant collections at   (Meath, 1960). There were 14 glasshouses for tropical plants including orchids, succulents and bromeliads (Fig. 5). In concluding his report, Meath makes mention   (Mason, 1969), he mentions the dangers and hazards encountered while plant collecting. On one such occasion, while on a mountainside on the island of La Réunion, cloud suddenly descended, reducing visibility to zero. There was no option but to wait for the cloud to clear as the collecting party stood on a precipice with a drop of a good 1,500 feet (around 450 m) below. Another episode, in Ireland and Britain. Much of Glasnevin's fame came from its orchids, especially under the direction of Frederick Moore from 1897 to 1922. A passion for orchids was shared by many people at the time, including Mason. Orchids became his plant of choice to collect (Fig. 6), an interest which appears to coincide with his travels to Madagascar. In correspondence with Walsh, he writes, 'By then I had become very interested in orchids and had really assembled quite a large collection, hardly ever buying them but exchanging them whenever I could. ' He collected in Central and South America. On Mexico, which he visited with his wife in early 1960, he wrote, 'It is, I think, the only country in the world where I remember seeing orchids growing as epiphytes on cacti, which would imply that they really did like very dry conditions indeed' (Mason, 1953(Mason, -1968.
The archives at Glasnevin and various published articles reveal Mason to be a man of generosity, one with a sense of adventure and a curiosity about the novelties of the plant world. His generous nature is clear from his large donations while his intrepid spirit is best Mason writes too of travelling through dense jungle in Borneo, and the inevitable interactions with the associated fauna: 'Finding half a dozen thick black slugs attached to your body is horrible, and although they fall off if touched with a match, the tiny incision they make bleeds alarmingly for quite a while. ' The slugs that Mason refers to are of course bloodsucking leeches. And in the West Indies he was attacked by an insect which attaches itself to the legs of passers-by, penetrating the outer skin and causing serious inflammation.
The difficulties continued wherever he travelled. In New Caledonia coconuts rained down like 'cannonballs' on the thatched hut in which he slept as a cyclone passed. Like many plant hunters, Mason accepted these hardships, dangers and hazards as part and parcel of his plant collecting.
The plants collected on these travels were not only horticulturally appealing but were respected and consulted by botanists. P.F. Hunt (1969)

The collections at Glasnevin after Mason
Mason's connection with Glasnevin appears to have terminated about the same time as Walsh retired as Director in 1968. The association with Glasnevin was built on the close friendship between the two men which, unfortunately, did not survive Walsh's retirement. Glasnevin had benefited greatly from Mason's generosity   (Fig. 8).
In 1995 the Curvilinear Range at Glasnevin was restored. The restoration process revealed substantial deterioration of the internal cast iron, attributed to the warm, moist conditions necessary for the Stove Collection. The Stove Collection was replaced with a South East Asian Montane Forest Collection comprising mainly Vireya rhododendrons donated by the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.

Mason's legacy
Maurice Mason died in October 1993, aged 81 ( Fig. 9). Regrettably, most of Larchwood was sold and Talbot Manor no longer exists. Mason's name continues to be remembered in some of the plants which he collected and grew. The most notable is a begonia he imported from Singapore in 1952 which was known as the cultivar Begonia 'Iron Cross' . It was among the first consignment of plants sent to Glasnevin in June 1953 and is now recognised as a species, Begonia masoniana (Fig. 10), from south China and peninsular Malaysia (Irmscher 1959a, b). Another tender plant is Dracaena masoniana (Byng & Christenhusz, 2018) originally collected in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as Sansevieria masoniana (Chahinian, 2000   and are still cultivated. Azara serrata 'Maurice Mason' is a wide-spreading and weeping form of the Chilean shrub, and Rodgersia pinnata 'Maurice Mason' is a clone named by Christopher Lloyd.
While not in the same league as great plant collectors such as Augustine Henry, Robert Fortune or George Forrest, Mason did make a substantial contribution to plant collecting immediately after the devastation of World War II. As a successful farmer, plant collector, creator of two gardens and award-winning plant exhibitor, he truly was a man for all seasons. The hope is that this paper stands as a belated acknowledgement of Maurice Mason's contribution to the regeneration of the orchid and tropical plant collection at Glasnevin.
In Mason's obituary, Alasdair Morrison (1994) wrote: 'Maurice Mason's enthusiasm for gardening was a lifelong commitment. At the age of four he already had his own plot in his parents' garden. In the week before his death, and in spite of serious physical disability, he flew with his son to Edinburgh to see some new plants at the Royal Botanic Garden. He was still planning new plantings when he died. He will be remembered with great affection by his many friends. '