The 2007 collecting trips were beyond all our expectations.

Peter Wharton joined me in the north of Vietnam, where I had been collecting with the aid of a motorbike. I had secured permits for collecting in a restricted area, where Peter would conduct a survey of this previously un-botanised area, while our Vietnamese host, Du was collecting specimen for his institute. The weather was dreadful, I wasn’t sure if I was going to end up with webbed feet or trenchfoot. Whatever, the collections kept on rolling in with new plants almost overwhelming us.

By the time Peter and Du left I was under the impression that it could not get any better than this. Well it did. Sue arrived accompanied by Ben Kettle (from what was Rickard’s Hardy Ferns) again, despite the weather we came up trumps time and time again, you will not be disappointed in future years with these collections. Nor my following leg, which Sue unfortunately missed (running the mail order), was in Taiwan where I was joined by Dan Hinkley and Finlay Colley. Our hosts in the National Museum of Taiwan Natural Science, went way beyond their brief in helping us, which of course came to fruition in some wonderful collections.