LIHU‘E — The National Tropical Botanical Garden and Kaua‘i Community College have teamed up to offer a glimpse into the life of Joseph Francis Rock, often described as “the father of Hawaiian botany.”
The free showing of “A King in China: The Life of Joseph Frances Rock” begins at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday in the cafeteria of the KCC Campus Center. NTBG Director and CEO Chipper Wichman will introduce the film.
The event coincides with the 100th anniversary of what many in and outside of Hawai‘i consider a foundational publication on Hawaiian plant life, Rock’s 1913 “The Indigenous Trees of the Hawaiian Islands,” which was republished by NTBG in 1974, according to a news release.
During his introduction, Wichman will share another important connection between Rock and the NTBG, the national nonprofit botanical institution headquartered on Kaua‘i.
Following many years of work in Hawai‘i, Rock become internationally recognized for his explorations in China.
“The story of Rock’s explorations in China is so fantastic it is hard to comprehend in the context of our modern society,” Wichman says. “Everyone in Hawai‘i should know that this internationally-celebrated explorer got his start right here in the Islands, where he taught himself not only botany but also photography, which endeared him to the National Geographic Society.”
A largely self-taught plant collector, Rock has a number of Hawaiian species named for him, including the Kaua‘i endemic sedge Cyperus rockii, according to the release. In the 1920s, Rock traveled to Asia for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, where he collected plants used in treating Hansen’s disease.
He may be most known for the expeditions he led for the National Geographic Society and others in Chinese and Tibetan border regions, exhaustively documenting the culture and language of the Naxi, an ethnic minority in the Yunan province.
Rock continued his work in Southeast Asia before eventually returning to China and then back to Hawai‘i in the 1950s, the release states.
The 52-minute film covers Rock’s time in regions of Southwest China and Tibet, which remain remote today, even as much of the culture has all but vanished.
This free event is the second installment in the “Around the World of Plants” lecture series — one of the collaborations between KCC and NTBG.
“KCC is delighted to partner with NTBG to bring this and other educational opportunities to the community,” KCC Chancellor Helen Cox said. “This is an example of a win-win-win collaboration.”
For more information about KCC or NTBG, visit their respective websites at kauai.hawaii.edu and www.ntbg.org.
