MORE DEVIANT SCIENCE

Professor John Heslop Harrison was an English botanist with a theory to prove.

He found the Hebridean islands of Scotland’s North West a rich field area for his science. Each year he took his Newcastle University students to botanize those isolated windswept islands; usually to the Isle of Rhum (or Rum, nowadays). It was generally believed that all plant life there would have been totally obliterated during the last ice age that only ended about 10 000 years ago. Lands at high elevations such as ‘ nunataks ’ that poked above the grinding, scouring ice fields would still have been too harsh a climate to sustain plant life. It would take a few thousand years for lichens and low mosses to create a soil that would then be receptive to plants returning from their refuge in the south.

But, as I said, the professor had a theory. He had convinced himself that a number of plants had survived in this locale throughout the ice age. Sure enough, he began to find specimens whose most northern limit today is in the mountain of the Alps. His contention was that since the plants had not returned gradually to the Hebrides in the 10 000 years available, their presence today meant that they had been there all along.

His finds were mostly Sedges which differ from the two ranked leaves of grasses on round stems by having whorls of three and more triangular stems. Whatever turns you on!

It seemed odd to his students and to fellow scientists that he alone was making these discoveries and always solitary specimens. Even if a plant was rare you might ordinarily expect a small community.

It soon became a bit of a joke and Heslop-Harrison (the hyphen was a late addition to the style of his name.) was suspected of growing the plants in his home garden, introducing them to the study site where he could then make his remarkable ‘ discoveries ‘.

 The goings on became so notorious that one wag suggested that when dug up on the island, the plants were found to be growing in John Innes mix. That would be PRO-MIX to North Americans. This was meant as a joke but you can see what was happening to the botanist’s reputation.

FURTHER READING     A RUM AFFAIR    A True Story of Botanical Fraud    by Karl Sabbagh

An update: Science Magazine March 2, 2012 reports similar claims of boreal forest trees in northern Scandinavia persisting through the ice age.
Despite his apparent falsifying of the evidence could Heslop-Harrison's theory of plant survival have some merit? WATCH THIS SPACE.

obliterated during the last ice age that only ended about 10 000 years ago. Lands at high elevations such as ‘ nunataks ’ that poked above the grinding, scouring ice fields would still have been too harsh a climate to sustain plant life. It would take a few thousand years for lichens and low mosses to create a soil that would then be receptive to plants returning from their refuge in the south.

But, as I said, the professor had a theory. He had convinced himself that a number of plants had survived in this locale throughout the ice age. Sure enough, he began to find specimens whose most northern limit today is in the mountain of the Alps. His contention was that since the plants had not returned gradually to the Hebrides in the 10 000 years available, their presence today meant that they had been there all along.

His finds were mostly Sedges which differ from the two ranked leaves of grasses on round stems by having whorls of three and more triangular stems. Whatever turns you on!

It seemed odd to his students and to fellow scientists that he alone was making these discoveries and always solitary specimens. Even if a plant was rare you might ordinarily expect a small community.

It soon became a bit of a joke and Heslop-Harrison (the hyphen was a late addition to the style of his name.) was suspected of growing the plants in his home garden, introducing them to the study site where he could then make his remarkable ‘ discoveries ‘.

 It became so notorious that one wag suggested that when dug up on the island, the plants were found to be growing in John Innes mix. That would be PRO-MIX to North Americans. This was meant as a joke but you can see what was happening to the botanist’s reputation.

FURTHER READING     A RUM AFFAIR    A True Story of Botanical Fraud    by Karl Sabbagh