author
Samuel Browne Parsons
1819–1906
A pioneering American nurseryman and horticultural writer, he helped shape 19th-century gardening in and around New York. His best-known book, Parsons on the Rose, reflects a practical love of plants and a lifetime of work in cultivation and landscape gardening.
1 Audiobook
Parsons on the Rose A Treatise on the Propagation, Culture and History of the Rose
by Samuel Browne Parsons
About the author
Born in 1819, he was a New York horticulturist, nurseryman, and writer closely associated with the long-running Parsons nursery in Flushing, Queens. That family business became well known in the 19th century for its role in American ornamental gardening and for introducing new plants to cultivation.
He wrote Parsons on the Rose, a clear, experience-based guide to growing and understanding roses that remained closely tied to working gardeners rather than academic specialists. His career also connected him to the broader world of landscape gardening through the Parsons family’s influence on American park and garden design.
He died in 1906, leaving behind a reputation as one of the practical plant experts of his era. Today he is remembered both for his writing and for the part he played in making horticulture and ornamental planting more widely established in the United States.