The first serious horticultural and botanical expeditions to take place in Nepal were in 1952 and 1954.  These were joint ventures between The Royal Horticultural Society and the Natural History Museum in London.  Whilst a considerable number of pressed specimens were taken (for depositing in the herbarium at the Natural History Museum, with duplicate specimens being sent to other major herbaria) the main purpose of the expeditions was HORTICULTURAL.  The main UK participants were Polunin, Sykes & Williams (1952) and Stainton, Sykes & Williams (1954); Bill Sykes was the RHS representative, whilst Williams was a botanist at the Natural History Museum.  Oleg Polunin, a botany master at Charterhouse, had already accompanied Bill Tilman on early mountaineering expeditions to Nepal (which opened its borders for official expeditions in the late 1940s).

Funding such major expeditions was exceedingly difficult, so the driving force behind the expeditions, George (later Sir) Taylor deserves our commendation - he was shrewd enough to engage Adam Stainton, a young man of independent means, to join the 1954 expedition, on the basis of paying in full, his share of the costs - which in today's money would run to tens of thousands of pounds.  But even with this windfall, money must have been tight and the long-standing tradition of shareholders paying for a share applied for the 1954.  I do not know how much individuals invested in return for a share of the seed but it would have been modest.  In the hey-day of plant hunting, certain businessmen invested tens of thousands (in today's money) to fund an individual plant hunter's expeditions into China.

I did write articles and visit Wisley to find out what had happened to the introductions from these expeditions, some 40 years later (shall be adding the very limited feed-back I received).  Even with such a major expedition, record-keeping is often poor (even at the major institutions), so all too soon, they rapidly get mixed up.  A complicating factor was that other than the more arid districts of Nepal (close to the border with Tibet), the conditions in most of Nepal (and the Eastern Himalaya in general) are NOT well-suited as a provenance for subsequent cultivation at the RHS HQ at Wisley - particularly for primulas, meconopsis and rhododendrons, desirable though they are ornamentally ...  With a lot of effort, and especially if the material arrived as roots or bulbs (not that there are many bulbous species in the Himalaya), some may have flowered but would not have lasted long.

1.    Sir Willliam Wright Smith - Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh

2.    Lord Aberconway - Bodnant

3.    The Director, RHS Gardens, Wisley

4.    Major Knox Finlay - Keillour Castle

5.    J. Renton Esq. - Branklyn

6.    R. Cooke Esq. - Corbridge, Northumberland

7.    W. Bentley Esq. - Burghclere, Berks

8.    E.B. Anderson Esq. - West Porlock, Somerset

9.    F. Knight Esq. - The Nursery, Woodbridge, Suffolk

10.  E. Savill Esq. - The Great Park, Windsor