John Joly: The Poet-Scientist Who Understood Plant Magic

November 1, 1857

John Joly (pronounced "JOLLY") was born on this day in Hollywood House near the village of Bracknagh (pronounced "BRACK-nuh") in County Offaly, Ireland.

Joly was an Irish polymath whose profound connection to nature led him not only to groundbreaking scientific discoveries but also to poetry about fossils and gardens.

As the son of an Anglican rector, young John grew up with a deep appreciation for both the scientific and poetic aspects of nature.

While Joly would become renowned for his numerous scientific achievements - including the invention of color photography and groundbreaking work in radiotherapy - it's his connection to the natural world that particularly interests us as gardeners.

Along with his lifelong friend Henry Dixon (who would become a professor of botany), Joly solved one of gardening's greatest mysteries: how sap rises in plants.

Before Joly and Dixon's breakthrough, no one could explain how water could defy gravity to reach the tops of tall trees. Their cohesion-tension theory revealed that it was the simple process of evaporation from leaves that created the pressure differential needed to pull water upward through plants. This fundamental understanding transformed our knowledge of plant physiology and still informs how we care for our gardens today.

But perhaps what makes Joly most fascinating to us as gardeners was his ability to see the poetic in the scientific. He was known to compose verses while on his frequent hiking expeditions through the Wicklow and Dublin hills.

In one particularly moving sonnet about a fossil called Oldhamia antiqua (pronounced "old-HAM-ee-uh an-TICK-wuh"), he reflected on the vast span of geological time and nature's endless cycles of change.

Is nothing left?

Have all things passed thee by?

The stars are not thy stars! The aged hills
Are changed and bowed beneath repeated ills
Of ice and snow, of river and of sky.

The sea that raiseth now in agony
Is not thy sea. The stormy voice that fills
This gloom with man's remotest sorrow shrills
The memory of the futurity!

We - promise of the ages! - Lift thine eyes,
And gazing on these tendrils intertwined
For Aeons in the shadows, recognize
In Hope and Joy, in heaven-seeking Mind,
In Faith, in Love, in Reason's potent spell
The visitants that bid a world farewell!

When Joly wasn't revolutionizing science or composing poetry, he was an avid sailor and outdoorsman who believed that the best thinking happened in nature.

He would often risk life and limb to collect geological samples, once convincing fishermen to row him through dense fog to a remote rock formation just to gather specimens.

Today, while we might best remember Joly for his scientific achievements - including a crater on Mars named in his honor - we gardeners can appreciate him as someone who understood that nature's mysteries could be approached through both scientific inquiry and poetic contemplation.

As you tend your garden today, remember John Joly, who showed us that sometimes the most profound scientific discoveries come from simply paying careful attention to the natural world around us.