Thomas Fairchild (gardener)

Thomas Fairchild (about 1667 to 1729) was an English nurseryman and florist who worked at Hoxton, near the City of London, and was regarded as the leading nurseryman of his day. He is remembered for experiments that helped to establish the existence of sex in plants, which most botanists still denied. In 1716 and 1717 he produced the first scientifically made artificial plant hybrid, a cross between sweet william and carnation known as Fairchild's Mule. He introduced American shrubs and trees such as red buckeye and flowering dogwood to English gardens, wrote The City Gardener in 1722, and corresponded with Linnaeus. Troubled by the religious implications of creating a new plant, he told the Royal Society the hybrid had arisen by accident.