Douglas' comfy arm!

David Douglas is best remembered by his most famous introduction, the magnificent Douglas fir.

He was born in Scone in 1799, and was employed as a gardener’s boy at Scone Palace.

In 1824 he explored the Columba River. It was this trip that gave him the seeds of the Douglas Fir.

On one visit home he travelled home to Scotland to see his mother, now a widow, and planted a seed of the Douglas Fir in the grounds of Scone Palace – which is still growing there today!

I sat on this branch of this amazing Douglas Fir, it is almost 200 yrs old...isn't that incredible?....one thing is for sure....it will continue to grow & be here another 100 yrs for thousands of other to sit on it's cradling arm!

David Douglas died in 1834 during an expedition in Hawaii.
While hunting for plants in the mountains, he fell into a pit dug by the natives for trapping wild cattle. It is not known whether there was already a bull in the pit, or whether it fell in after our plant hunter, but the result was the same. When searchers came upon the site, his faithful dog was sitting near the edge of the pit and the bull had long since stopped mauling Douglas’s body.

A tragic end for someone whose plant hunting adventures still rank among the world’s greatest botanical explorations. The plants and trees he brought back with him would alter the landscape and gardens of Britain forever!