Charles Maries (c.1851-1902) is best known today as one of England's most successful late nineteenth-century plant explorers. Between 1877 and 1879, while plant hunting for the nursery firm of James Veitch & Sons in China and Japan, he discovered many new plants, some of which, such as Abies mariesii Mast. and Fraxinus mariesii Hook. F., were named after him. However, his subsequent career is not so well known. In 1880, he took a position as garden superintendent to the Maharaja of Darbangha in north-east India. In 1890, he took a new appointment as superintendent of the gardens of the Maharaja of Gwalior, where he died in 1902. His career in India, which involved the creation of new gardens, contributions to Indian economic botany and continuing exploration for new plants, exemplifies the British influence on Indian garden design, botany and horticulture during the late nineteenth century.