Henry Nehrling, who lived from 1853 to 1929, was an internationally renowned horticulturalist, naturalist, botanist, ornithologist, and writer known as the patron saint of Florida gardens. Here and at his later Naples gardens, between 1886 and 1929, he introduced and tested over 3,000 new and rare species of plants and trees, as well as Florida native plants. More than 300 of these became essential to the state's ornamental horticulture, including caladiums, palms, bamboos, magnolias, amaryllis, Indian hawthorne, and crinum lilies. His gardens became a mecca for plant lovers and a tourist destination in the early 1900s, attracting prominent visitors such as President Theodore Roosevelt and horticulturists David Fairchild and Liberty Hyde Bailey. Nehrling collaborated with the Office of Foreign Seed and Plant Introduction of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and in 1929 received the Meyer Agricultural Explorer Medal. He was also a founding member of the American Ornithological Union and the Florida Audubon Society, and he wrote extensively on plants and birds, including Our Native Birds of Song and Beauty, The Plant World in Florida, and My Garden in Florida.