Between 1899 and 1911, EH Wilson (1876–1930), the foremost plant hunter of his generation, travelled extensively in China. Initially searching for the dove tree, Davidia involucrata, he eventually collected and introduced many hundreds of plants into western gardens and arboreta. A century after Wilson, Flanagan and Kirkham, two modern-day plant hunters, retraced his routes to the high passes and exotic species of western China, often matching Wilson’s photographs of remarkable trees and landscapes with their own then-and-now images.