Briars, Rattlesnakes, and Legacy: The Extraordinary Life of Mary Gibson Henry

April 16, 1967

On this day, we mark the passing of botanist Mary Gibson Henry, a woman whose passion for plants led her through briar patches, rattlesnake-infested swamps, and ultimately to her final breath while doing what she loved most - collecting plants.

One cannot help but admire a woman born with soil practically coursing through her veins. The Gibson family's horticultural lineage was impeccable—Mary's great-grandfather, George Pepper, sat on the First Council of the Pennsylvania Horticulture Society, a detail that would make any gardening enthusiast swoon with hereditary envy.

This formidable woman didn't merely dabble in botany; she commanded it, eventually ascending to the presidency of the American Horticultural Society. Such was her contribution to the field that not only the daylily Hymenocallis henryae but also chamaecyparis henryae, chionanthus henryae, halesia henryae, and most notably, the lily Lilium iridollae bear her name—living monuments far more fitting than any cold marble statue could ever be.

In 1909, Mary wed Dr. John Norman Henry (who would later become Philadelphia's Director of Public Health), though one suspects her true marriage was to the soil itself.

Her garden at 801 Stoney Lane in Gladwyne was not some dainty affair of pretty blooms arranged for afternoon tea viewings. No, Mary cultivated one of the largest collections of native American plants in the world, a sprawling botanical kingdom comprising greenhouses, a "splendid" kitchen garden, native rock plants, and orchards that would make lesser gardeners weep with inadequacy.

A true collector in every sense, she "never grew a plant that she could buy"—a philosophy that would send modern nursery owners into fits of despair!

But it was in 1929 that Mary truly began her most audacious chapter. Commencing her plant-collecting expeditions, she initially dragged along the entire family—husband and four children in tow! Whether they shared her enthusiasm or merely submitted to her botanical fervor remains deliciously unclear.

Over the next forty years—yes, dear gardeners, FORTY YEARS—this indomitable spirit embarked on over 100 botanical expeditions. For perspective, that's an astonishing number for any botanist of the era, let alone a woman navigating the male-dominated scientific wilderness of the early 20th century. Her explorations took her not just through the American Southeast but as far as British Columbia and Northwest Canada, where the Canadian Government named a mountain "Mt. Mary Henry" in her honor—the ultimate gardener's trophy!

Mary harbored no illusions about the genteel nature of her chosen profession. She proclaimed with refreshing candor:

"I soon learned that rare and beautiful plants can only be found in places that are difficult of access ...

Often one has to shove one's self through or wriggle under briars, with awkward results to clothing and many and deep cuts and scratches ...

Wading, usually barelegged, through countless rattlesnake-infested swamps adds immensely to the interest of the day's work."

One must appreciate her extraordinary understatement—rattlesnakes adding "interest" to the workday! The modern gardener who complains of a little dirt under the fingernails should hang their head in shame.

In her botanical pursuits, Mary followed quite literally in the footsteps of the great American naturalist John Bartram. She never embarked on her expeditions to the Southeast without his Travels tucked firmly under her arm, using it as a guide to locate treasures like Rhododendron flammeum. One can almost picture her, aged 82, brandishing Bartram's book like a botanical treasure map, while her companions wilted in the Carolina heat.

Her legacy encompasses more than just her expeditions—she discovered and described more than 50 species of plants and received numerous prestigious accolades including the Schaeffer Gold Medal from the Pennsylvania Horticulture Society in 1941, the Herbert Medal from the American Plant Life Society in 1950, and the Florence de Bevoise Medal from the Garden Club of America in 1960. The University of Pennsylvania bestowed upon her an honorary Master of Science degree in 1956, a belated academic acknowledgment of what the natural world had known for decades.

And so it was on this day in April that Mary Gibson Henry met her end in Wilmington, North Carolina, at the age of 82, not in some comfortable bed surrounded by potted plants, but in the wild, collecting specimens until her final moment. What a gloriously fitting departure for a woman who refused to experience nature from behind glass or through the pages of a book (unless it was Bartram's to guide her to more plants).

Her 105-acre property, now reduced to a still-impressive 40 acres of steeply sloping land with picturesque gneiss rock outcroppings, became The Henry Foundation under the stewardship of her daughter, Josephine de N. Henry, who inherited both her mother's passion and the monumental task of cataloguing her vast collections. The Foundation, formed in 1948 to preserve native plants from Canada to Florida and westward to Texas, New Mexico, and Montana, opened to the public in 1974—a botanical treasure trove containing Mary's "species of eternity" like Phlox henryae and Lilium mary henryae.

For those of us who fancy ourselves serious gardeners, let us remember Mary when we hesitate to venture out in inclement weather or fret over a minor thorn prick. Her legacy challenges us to pursue our horticultural passions with the same fearless devotion that carried her through swamps and briars—and ultimately into botanical immortality.