What does Queen Victoria have in common with George Forster?

Johann Reinhold Forster (1729–1798) was born in Tczew, which was then called Dirschau and was part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. He was a Lutheran pastor and a naturalist. He studied in Berlin and at the University of Halle. Upon his return to Pomerania, he became a pastor in Mokry Dwór near Gdańsk, where he married his distant cousin Justyna. Their eldest son, Jan Jerzy Adam Forster (1754–1794), is known to posterity as George Forster – an outstanding illustrator, botanist, journalist and creator of a new literary genre, namely travel literature.

In 1772, Forster was invited by the British Admiralty to serve as the chief naturalist on Captain Cook's second expedition. The aim of the expedition was to investigate and possibly confirm the existence of the hypothetical continent Terra Australis Incognita, or the Southern Unknown Land. The father and his seventeen-year-old son set sail in July 1772 from Plymouth aboard HMS Resolution, commanded by Cook himself.

They returned almost exactly three years later, knowing that the great southern continent did not exist, but that New Zealand, the Tonga Islands, Tahiti, New Caledonia, the Marquesas, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands did. They described nearly 300 species of animals and collected around 3,000 plant specimens, of which over 100 species were scientifically described for the first time.

Among other species, Howea forsteriana – discovered in 1788 – is named after him. This elegant palm, named in honour of George of Mokry Dwór, is a species endemic to Lord Howe Island, which lies in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand. Its first seeds were sent to Great Britain and Germany from the town of Kentia in the 1840s. Unsurprisingly, the plant was named the Kentia palm.

Queen Victoria (reigned 1837–1901) was particularly fond of Howea forsteriana – the plant tolerated indoor light well, grew slowly, and retained a slender, upright habit. Victoria liked to have it in her residences, especially in state rooms and reception rooms. It was very quickly dubbed the 'royal palm' and, following the queen's example, placed in salons and ballrooms. The queen valued it so highly that she requested her body, laid out in a coffin after her death, be adorned with kentia leaves.

In Poland, the oldest kencias can be seen at the Palm House in Łódź, where Howea forsteriana has been growing for 130 years. Kencias grow very slowly and produce no more than three new leaves a year. In their natural habitat, on their native island, they reach their full height – a maximum of fifteen metres – after sixty years.

Although so popular at royal courts, and today in government offices, ministries and law firms, in its natural habitat the Lord Howe palm is strictly protected as a species threatened with extinction in the medium term.