Famous naturalists

 

 

 

As a boy, Joseph enjoyed exploring the countryside, where he developed a keen interest in natural history. In 1760, he was enrolled at the University of Oxford. As botany was not taught at Oxford, he paid botanist Israel Lyons to deliver a series of lectures at the university in 1764. However, he left Oxford that year without taking a degree.

His father had died in 1761, so when Banks reached the age of 21, he inherited the large estate in Lincolnshire, becoming the local squire and magistrate, and dividing his time between Lincolnshire and London. At the British Museum he met Swedish naturalist Daniel Solander (see below), a pupil of the famous Carl Linnaeus (see below), whom he came to know through Solander.

As Banks’s influence increased, he became an adviser to King George III (1738-1820), urging him to support voyages of discovery to new lands, hoping to pursue his own interest in botany.

In 1766, Banks was elected to the Royal Society, and later the same year he participated in an expedition on board the frigate HMS Niger to Newfoundland and Labrador, the purpose of which was to study natural history. Among the results were descriptions of 34 previously unidentified bird species, including the great auk (Pinguinus impennis). Banks noted that a large number of these ‘penguins’ were swimming around the ship. Sadly, this large flightless auk went extinct around 1844 due to ruthless hunting.

Banks was appointed to a scientific expedition to the South Pacific Ocean 1768-1771 on board HMS Endeavour, the first voyage of Captain James Cook (1728-1779) in the Pacific. Banks funded 8 others to join him: Daniel Solander, Finnish naturalist Herman Spöring, artists Sydney Parkinson and Alexander Buchan, and 4 servants from his estate. The voyage first went to South Africa, then to Brazil, where Banks described the Bougainvillea, which is today cultivated in warmer areas around the world. They then sailed to Tahiti, and later to New Zealand.

Banks noted in his journal on 24th December 1769, off Three Kings Islands, New Zealand: “Calm most of the Day: myself in a boat shooting, in which I had good success, killing cheifly several Gannets or Solan Geese, so like European ones they are hardly distinguishable from them. As it was the humour of the ship to keep Christmas in the old fashiond way, it was resolved of them to make a Goose pye for tomorrows dinner.”

On Christmas Day, Banks recorded that “our goose pye was eaten with great approbation.” – Therefore, it is hardly surprising that none of these specimens found their way to England, considering that a goose is best when fried with the skin on!

Today, this bird is known as the Australian gannet (Morus serrator).

The crew and scientists spent almost 7 weeks ashore on the east coast of Australia, while the ship, which had become damaged on the Great Barrier Reef, was repaired. Banks, Solander, and Spöring made the first major collection of Australian plants, and almost 800 specimens were illustrated, later to appear in Banks’s Florilegium, which, however, was not published in Banks’s lifetime. During their stay, Banks also observed a ‘kanguru’.

Banks returned to England in July 1771. He had intended to go with Cook on his second voyage, which began in May 1772, but the Admiralty regarded Banks’s demands on scientific requirements on board Cook’s new ship, HMS Resolution, as unacceptable and withdrew his permission to sail.

However, Banks soon arranged an alternative expedition aboard Sir Lawrence, going to the Isle of Wight, the Hebrides, the Orkney Islands, and Iceland. Many botanical specimens were collected during this trip.

Banks now settled in London and began work on his Florilegium. He was appointed as an informal director to the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, and he now began sending plant collectors around the world. In 1778, he was elected president of the Royal Society, a position he held for more than 41 years.

Numerous plants were named in his honour, including Banksia, a genus with about 170 species of gorgeous Australian flowers, and also the red spider flower (Grevillea banksii), a species of sundew, Drosera banksii, Eucalyptus banksii, and a species of seaweed, Hormosira banksii.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In this book, he relates his explorations of the southern colonies of British North America 1773-77. At the time, it was considered one of the foremost books on American natural history. Today, it is known by the shortened title Bartram’s Travels.

As a boy, William accompanied his father, naturalist John Bartram (1699-1777), on many travels to New England, the Catskill Mountains, the New Jersey Pine Barrens, and Florida. From a very young age, he was noted for the quality of his botanical and ornithological drawings. In 1756, 17 years old, he collected the type specimens of 14 species of birds, which were illustrated and described by English naturalist George Edwards (1694-1773) in Gleanings of Natural History, vol. 2 (1760).

When he started travelling, Bartram added many rare plant species to his father’s botanical garden in Philadelphia.

Below are some incidents, related in Travels:

As he traveled through the sparsely populated country of South Georgia, Bartram encountered an “intrepid Siminole” who had decided to kill the next white man he met. However, he was disarmed by Bartram’s unexpected friendliness.

In Florida, he made friends with a young Seminole prince, whose companions, however, “attempted to lay hold on me, which I resisted, and my friend, the young prince, interposed and pushed them off, saying that I was a brave warrior and his friend, that they should not insult me, when instantly they altered their countenance and behaviour; they all whooped in chorus, took me friendly by the hand, clapped me on the shoulder and laid their hands on their breasts in token of sincere friendship, and laughing aloud, said I was a sincere friend to the Siminoles.”

In South Carolina, he describes an oncoming storm: “Darkness gathers around, far distant thunder rolls over the trembling hills; the black clouds with august majesty and power, moves slowly forwards, shading regions of towering hills, and threatening all the destructions of a thunderstorm; all around is now still as death, not a whisper is heard, but a total inactivity and silence seems to pervade the earth; the birds afraid to utter a chirrup, and in low tremulous voices take leave of each other, seeking covert and safety; every insect is silenced, and nothing heard but the roaring of the approaching hurricane.”

While in the Cherokee Nation, he writes the following: “(…) and having gained its summit, enjoyed a most enchanting view, a vast expanse of green meadows and strawberry fields; a meandering river gliding through, saluting in its various turnings the swelling, green, turfy knolls, embellished with parterres of flowers and fruitful strawberry beds; flocks of turkies strolling about them; herds of deer prancing in the meads or bounding over the hills; companies of young innocent Cherokee virgins, some busily gathering the rich fragrant fruit, others having already filled their baskets, lay reclined under the shade of floriferous and fragrant native bowers of Magnolia, Azalea, Philadelphus, perfumed Calycanthus, sweet Yellow Jessamine and cerulian Glycine frutescens, disclosing their beauties to the fluttering breeze, and bathing their limbs in the cool fleeting streams; whilst other parties, more gay and libertine, were yet collecting strawberries or wantonly chasing their companions, tantalising them, staining their lips and cheeks with the rich fruit.”

Several animals and plants were named to honour Bartram, including the upland sandpiper (Bartramia longicauda), Bartram’s bass, also known as red-eyed bass (Micropterus coosae), a fish found in Georgia, Bartram’s serviceberry (Amelanchier bartramiana), and brown kurrajong (Commersonia bartramia), a tree in the mallow family (Malvaceae), native from southern China southwards to eastern Australia.

A genus of mosses, Bartramia, was named for either him or his father John, or both.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From 1572, Gaspard studied in his hometown Basel, later also in Padua, Bologna, Montpellier, Paris, and Tübingen. In 1581, he obtained a doctorate in medicine from the University of Basel, giving lectures in botany and anatomy. In 1582, he obtained a professorship in the Greek at the same university, and in 1588 he was appointed to the chair of anatomy and botany. Later, he became Stadtarzt (city physician), professor of the practice of medicine, rector of the university, and dean of his faculty.

In his outstanding work Pinax theatri botanici (‘Illustrated exposition of plants’), from 1623, this brilliant scientist described about 6,000 plant species, classifying them in a form, which almost equals the binominal nomenclature, introduced by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus (see below) in 1753.

He published many other works, including Theatrum Anatomicum (1605), and he edited the works of Italian physician and naturalist Pietro Andrea Mattioli (1500-1577), entitled Petri Andreae Matthioli Opera Omnia, with considerable additions. He also planned a major work, Theatrum Botanicum, in 12 parts, of which he finished 3. However, only one was published after his death, in 1658.

Bauhin was honoured by Linnaeus in 1753, when he named a genus of trees in the pea family Bauhinia.

 

 

 

 

 

While studying, Bigelow also became interested in botany, especially plants with medical properties. He established a medical practice in Lancaster, and also devoted much time to make botanical studies. He produced a list of medicinal plants of Ohio, published in 1849.

In 1850, Bigelow participated as botanist and surgeon on a Mexican Boundary Survey expedition, which travelled through territory unknown to science. The botanical collection resulted in a report, Botany of the Boundary, classifying about 2,600 plants. Among Bigelow’s discoveries was Parthenium argentatum, a rubber-yielding plant, known as guayule in Spanish.

In 1853, Bigelow joined another expedition, known as The 35th Parallel Pacific Railroad Survey, serving as surgeon and botanist. Another member of the expedition, German artist Balduin Möllhausen (1825-1905), noted that Bigelow was a congenial colleague in the field, “a general favourite (…) [with] a pattern of gentleness and patience (…) not only a zealous botanist, but also an enthusiastic sportsman. (…) To his patients he was most kind and attentive, and of his mule, Billy, he made an absolute spoiled child.”

The expedition reached Los Angeles in March 1854, and most members went back to Washington, D.C., via San Francisco and Panama. However, Bigelow chose to remain in California to collect plants, of which many species were new to science.

Several plants were named in his honour, including the fetid adder’s tongue (Scoliopus bigelovii), discovered by him on Mount Tamalpais in California, teddy-bear cholla (Cylindropuntia bigelovii), Bigelow’s monkey flower (Diplacus bigelovii), Bigelow’s amaranth (Amaranthus bigelovii), and Bigelow’s sneezeweed (Helenium bigelovii).

 

 

 

 

 

Friedrich Boie was also known for his contributions to the classification of birds, describing several new genera, including Glaucis (hummingbirds), Lipaugus (pihas), Pycnonotus (bulbuls), Athene (owls), Progne (swallows), Pericrocotus (minivets), and Chrysococcyx (cuckoos).

Among his written works were Bemerkungen über Merrem’s Versuch eines Systems der Amphibien (‘Remarks on Merrem’s attempt to create a classification of amphibians’), from 1827, and Auszüge aus dem System der Ornithologie (‘Excerpts from the ornithological classification’), from 1844.

Heinrich Boie was appointed assistant to Dutch zoologist Coenraad Jacob Temminck (see below). In 1825, Temminck sent him on an expedition to the Dutch East Indies (today Indonesia), led by German naturalist Salomon Müller (1804-1864), to collect specimens. They arrived in Batavia (today Jakarta) in 1826, where Heinrich died of malaria the following year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Italy, Charles had already discovered the moustached warbler (Acrocephalus melanopogon), which was new to science, and on the voyage he collected specimens of a hitherto undescribed storm petrel, which is today known as Wilson’s storm petrel (Oceanites oceanicus), named after Scottish-American naturalist Alexander Wilson (1766-1813), often called’ the father of American ornithology’.

Bonaparte now began a study of American birds, updating Wilson’s Ornithology or History of the Birds of the United States, which was published in a revised edition 1825-33. Other publications included Observations on the Nomenclature of Wilson’s Ornithology and Synopsis of the Birds of the United States.

In 1826, the Bonaparte family returned to Europe, and two years later they settled in Rome. In Italy, Bonaparte lectured and wrote extensively on natural history. His work on the animals of Italy, Iconografia della Fauna Italica, was published 1832-41. He also published Specchio Comparativo delle Ornithologie di Roma e di Filadelfia, in which he compared birds of Philadelphia and Italy.

He was the author of 165 genera, 203 species and 262 subspecies, including an American genus of doves, Zenaida, named after his wife.

 

 

 

 

 

Brisson developed an interest in classification of animals, and in 1756 he published Le règne animal divisé en IX classes, ou Méthode contenant la division générale des animaux (‘The animal kingdom divided into 9 classes, or A method to the general division of animals’).

He soon became an authority on birds, and in 1760 he published Ornithologie, ou Méthode Contenant la Division des Oiseaux en Ordres, Sections, Genres, Especes & leurs Variétés (‘Ornithology, or A method to divide birds into orders, sections, genera, species & their varieties’), comprising about 4,000 pages in 6 volumes and a supplement. However, it was Brisson’s only contribution to the study of birds.

Brisson gave each bird species a Latin name, but did not use the binominal classification for animals, introduced by Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus (see below) in 1758. However, when Linnaeus was working on the 12th edition of his Systema Naturae, he relied heavily on Brisson’s work. He added 386 bird species, of which 240 were taken from Brisson’s work.

In 1762, Brisson abandoned zoology and became professor of physics in Paris.

 

 

 

 

 

Robert enrolled to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh, but spent more time studying plants than medicine. He went on numerous botanical collecting trips into the Scottish Highlands and made detailed descriptions of the collected plants. In 1793, he left his medical studies, and the following year he enlisted in the Fifeshire Regiment of Fencible Infantry, which was posted to Ireland shortly after. In 1795, he was appointed assistant to the regiment surgeon. He had ample leisure time, in which he could study plants.

By 1800, Brown was one of the foremost botanists in Ireland, corresponding with a number of established botanists. In 1801, he became a member of an expedition to Madeira, South Africa, and Australia on board the Investigator, whose captain was British navigator and cartographer Matthew Flinders (1774-1814). For three and a half years, Brown studied Australian plants, collecting about 3,400 species, of which about 2,000 were previously unknown to science.

In 1810, he published his results from the expedition in Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae et Insulae Van Diemen (‘Preliminary Flora of New Holland [today Australia] and van Diemens Island’ [today Tasmania]), the first systematic account of the Australian flora.

The same year, he was appointed librarian of the famous botanist Joseph Banks (see above), and when Banks died in 1820, Brown inherited his library and herbarium, which were transferred to the British Museum in 1827.

In 1827, he noticed that microscopic pollen grains move erratically in water, as a result of movements of molecules in the water, a process later called Brownian Motion. Four years later, he was the first to note that living cells contain a nucleus.

In 1830, Brown was one of the founding members of the Royal Geographical Society, and he served as president of the Linnean Society 1849-1853.

Several plants and localities were named in his honour, for instance Pisonia brunoniana (today called Ceodes brunoniana), a small tree in the family Nyctaginaceae, which is native to northern New Zealand, the Central Asian larkspur Delphinium brunonianum, Brown’s River south of Hobart, Tasmania, where he collected plants, and Mount Brown in British Columbia, Canada, which was named by David Douglas (see below).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As his father wanted him to study law, he commenced studies of Latin, Greek, and civil law at Louvain, then moved to Marburg to continue his studies, but later switched to theology, first at Marburg, later at Wittenberg, where he also studied philosophy.

At Marburg, he got interested in botany and decided to move to France to study medicine at the University of Montpellier 1551-54. However, he never practiced medicine. In the 1560s, he got employed by Anton Fugger, a wealthy banker in Augsburg, as tutor to one of Fugger’s sons. He was also sent on a plant collecting expedition to Spain, where he became familiar with the newly introduced plants from the New World.

In 1573, with the help of Flemish writer, herbalist, and diplomat Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq (1522-1592), Clusius was appointed director of the imperial medical garden in Vienna. Busbecq was a keen gardener, and as had connections with the Ottoman Empire, he was able to arrange that exotic bulbs were sent from Constantinople to the garden in Vienna. When Emperor Maximilian died in 1576, Clusius was discharged from his job.

In the late 1580s, he left Vienna and moved to Frankfurt am Main, but was then appointed as professor at the University of Leiden in 1593, and he also became director of the new botanical university garden here, one of the earliest formal botanical gardens in Europe.

Clusius traveled extensively throughout Europe to broaden his knowledge of plants, and he was among the first to study the flora of the Alps.

His publications include Histoire des Plantes (1557), a French translation of the famous herbal of Flemish physician and botanist Rembert Dodoens (1517-1585), Rariorum aliquot stirpium per Hispanias observatarum historia (‘The history of several rare plants observed in Spain’), published in 1576 as one of the earliest books on Spanish flora, and Rariorum stirpium per Pannonias observatorum Historiae (‘The history of some rare plants observed through the Pannonias’, 1583), which was the first book on Austrian and Hungarian alpine flora.

A species of gentian, Gentiana clusii, was named in his honour in 1854 by French botanists Eugène Pierre Perrier de la Bâthie (1825-1916) and André Songeon (1826-1905). This plant is described on the page Plants: Flora of the Alps and the Pyrenees.

 

 

 

 

 

He often explored the jungle around the house and soon got an intimate knowledge of its wildlife. He began hunting, first with a catapult and a pellet bow, until he was given an old muzzle-loading shotgun at the age of 8. He made friends with the locals, of whom many were poachers, and Jim learned many skills from them. When he started school, his shooting impressed Field Marshal Earl Roberts, who lent him a rifle, with which he shortly after shot his first leopard.

As a young man, Corbett got a job for a railway company, supervising the transport of goods across the Ganges at Mokameh Ghat (today Mokama Ghat), east of Patna, Bihar. He got on extremely well with his staff. In his book My India (1952), he states: “My people were admittedly poor, and they had their full share of troubles; none the less they were full of good cheer, and as I could understand and speak their language as well as they could, I was able to take part in their light-hearted banter and appreciate all their jokes.”

In the same book, he describes how the payment for his staff was long overdue, and people were suffering. He writes:

“As I ate my dinner, I heard the following conversation taking place in the veranda.

One of the headmen: “What was on the plate you put in front of the sahib?”

My servant: “A chapati and a little dal.”

One of the headmen: “Why only one chapati and a little dal?”

My servant: “Because there is no money to buy more.”

One of the headmen: “What else does the sahib eat?”

My servant: “Nothing.”

After a short silence I heard the oldest of the headmen, a Mohammedan with a great beard dyed with henna, say to his companions, “Go home. I will stay and speak to the sahib.”

When my servant had removed the empty plate, the old headman requested permission to enter the room, and standing before me spoke as follows: “We came to tell you that our stomachs have long been empty and that after tomorrow it would be no longer possible for us to work. But we have seen tonight that your case is as bad as ours, and we will carry on as long as we have strength to stand. I will, with your permission, go now, sahib, and for the sake of Allah, I beg you will do something to help us.”

Every day for weeks I had been appealing to head-quarters at Gorakhpur for funds, and the only reply I could elicit was that steps were being taken to make early payment of my bills.

After the bearded headman left me that night I walked across to the Telegraph Office, where the telegraphist on duty was sending the report I submitted each night of the work done during the day, took a form off his table and told him to clear the line for an urgent message to Gorakhpur. It was then a few minutes after midnight and the message I sent read: “Work at Mokameh Ghat ceases at midday today unless I am assured that twelve thousand rupees has been dispatched by morning train.”

The telegraphist read the message over and looking up at me said: “If I have your permission I will tell my brother, who is on duty at this hour, to deliver the message at once and not wait until office hours in the morning.”

Ten hours later, and with two hours of my ultimatum still to run, I saw a telegraph messenger hurrying towards me with a buff-coloured envelope in his hand. Each group of men he passed stopped work to stare after him, for everyone in Mokameh Ghat knew the purport of the telegram I had sent at midnight. After I had read the telegram, the messenger, who was the son of my office peon, asked if the news was good; and when I told him it was good, he dashed off and his passage down the sheds was punctuated by shouts of delight. The money could not arrive until the following morning, but what did a few hours matter to those who had waited for long months?

The pay clerk who presented himself at my office next day, accompanied by some of my men carrying a cash chest slung on a bamboo pole and guarded by two policemen, was a jovial Hindu, who was as broad as he was long and who exuded good humour and sweat in equal proportions. I never saw him without a pair of spectacles tied across his forehead with red tape. Having settled himself on the floor of my office he drew on a cord tied round his neck and from somewhere deep down in his person pulled up a key. He opened the cash chest, and lifted out twelve string-bags, each containing one thousand freshly minted silver rupees. He licked a stamp, and stuck it to the receipt I had signed. Then, delving into a pocket that would comfortably have housed two rabbits, he produced an envelope containing bank notes to the value of four hundred and fifty rupees, my arrears of pay for three months.

I do not think anyone has ever had as great pleasure in paying out money as I had, when I placed a bag containing a thousand rupees into the hands of each of the twelve headmen, nor do I think men have ever received money with greater pleasure than they did. The advent of the fat pay clerk had relieved a tension that had become almost unbearable, and the occasion called for some form of celebration, so the remainder of the day was declared a holiday – the first my men and I had indulged in for ninety-five days. I do not know how the others spent their hours of relaxation. For myself, I am not ashamed to admit that I spent mine in sound and restful sleep.”

In 1907, Corbett was approached by the deputy commissioner of Naini Tal, who asked him to hunt the Champawat tiger, a terrible animal, which, it was said, had killed over 200 people in Nepal, before it was driven into India. Here she killed another 200 people during the next 4 years. Several hunters and army people had attempted to shoot her, but in vain. Corbett accepted the challenge and managed to shoot the tiger.

In 1910, he was asked to hunt two other man-eaters east of the Almora district, the Mukteshwar tiger and the Panar leopard, the latter having killed more than 400 people. Corbett succesfully shot both of them.

Then 15 years passed before he again hunted a man-eater. In 1925, he was asked by his friend William Ibbotson to hunt the infamous leopard of Rudraprayag, which since 1918 had been killing more than 100 people in Garhwal. In his book The Man-eating Leopard of Rudraprayag (1947), Corbett relates his hair-raising adventures, when he was trying to rid the people of this terrible animal. However, it killed several more people before Corbett managed to shoot it in 1926. Several quotes from the book are found on the page Animals – Mammals: The spotted killer.

Over the next several years, Corbett continued to hunt man-eating tigers. His adventures are described in the books Man-Eaters of Kumaon (1944) and The Temple Tiger and More Man-Eaters of Kumaon (1954).

When the First World War broke out in 1914, Corbett wanted to enlist, but was rejected, as he was 38 years old. However, as the war dragged on, more soldiers were needed, and he was commissioned as a captain in 1917. He recruited 5,000 men in Kumaon, where he was greatly esteemed because of his hunting of man-eaters.

Landing in Southampton, Corbett and his men were transferred to the Western Front. Conditions were very difficult, but Corbett tried to protect his men and keep their morale high. They were in a foreign land with a cold climate, and the Indian troops were often scorned by British soldiers who felt superior.

Back in India, Corbett was negotiating with the railways to rejoin their workforce, but had to join the army again in 1919 for the Third Anglo-Afghan War.

When he returned from this war, Corbett decided not to work for the railways, but in a Kumaon house agency he had invested in. Corbett expanded this business, and he was able to purchase a village named Chhoti Haldwani, near Kaladhungi. He imported new crops, including bananas, grapes, and maize, and maintained the village to a high standard.

He also organised hunts for the elite of British India, including Governor-General Lord Linlithgow, who became a close friend. During the Second World War, he taught troops of the Burma Campaign to survive in the jungle.

In his later years, Corbett got disgusted with the widespread forest clearing and hunting, which was decimating animal populations and their habitats alarmingly. Instead he promoted photography as an alternative to trophy hunting. He played a major role in the creation of India’s first wildlife reserve in 1934, which was renamed Jim Corbett National Park after his death.

During the turbulent conditions around India’s independence, Corbett decided to move to Kenya in 1947, where he died 8 years later.

Several quotes from his books are found on the page Quotes on Nature.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is an example of his unconventional points of view, in this case regarding black henbane (Hyoscyamus niger), which in those days was also known as Jupiter’s bean: “I wonder how astrologers could take on them to make this an herb of Jupiter: and yet Mizaldus*, a man of penetrating brain, was of that opinion as well as the rest; the herb is indeed under the dominion of Saturn and I prove it by this argument: All the herbs which delight most to grow in saturnine places** are saturnine herbs. Henbane delights most to grow in saturnine places, and whole cart loads of it may be found near the places where they empty the common Jakes***, and scarce a ditch to be found without it growing by it. Ergo, it is an herb of Saturn.”

 

 

 

 

Numerous examples of Culpeper’s advice are quoted on the page Plants: Plants in folklore and poetry.

 

 

 

 

 

He was born in Bergzabern in Rhineland-Palatinate, south-western Germany, near the French border. The name of the town means ‘mountain hut’ or ‘mountain tavern’, which in the Latin became Tabernaemontanus.

Dietrich enrolled at Heidelberg University in 1562 to study medicine and natural history, and he was often inspired by the works of two pioneers of Renaissance botany, Otto Brunfels (c. 1488-1534) and Hieronymus Bock (c. 1498-1554).

Dietrich was employed as private physician to various German nobles. He married 3 times and was the father of no less than 18 children.

He was commemorated by French monk and botanist Charles Plumier (1646-1704) who erected the genus Tabernaemontana, a group of tropical shrubs and small trees in the dogbane family (Apocynaceae), commonly known as milkwood. Plumier’s name was adopted by Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus (see below) in 1753. A picture, depicting the fruit of white milkwood (T. alba), is shown on the page In praise of the colours red and orange.

 

 

 

 

 

He is best known as being the author of De materia medica (‘On Medical Material’), originally written in Greek, entitled Peri hules iatrikes, which has the same meaning. It is an encyclopedic pharmacopeia in 5 volumes, dealing with herbal medicine and related medicinal substances. For more than 1,500 years, this work was regarded as the foremost authority on plants and herbal medicine.

Dioscorides was commemorated by French monk and botanist Charles Plumier (1646-1704), when he created the genus Dioscorea, known as yam or air potato. They comprise more than 600 species, of which the vast majority are tropical.

Numerous examples of Dioscorides’s advice are quoted on the page Plants: Plants in folklore and poetry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For 7 years, he was an apprentice to William Beattie, head gardener at the nearby Scone Palace, and then spent a winter at a college in Perth to learn more about the scientific aspects of gardening. Later, he moved to the botanical gardens at Glasgow University, where he attended botany lectures. Professor William Jackson Hooker (see below) was greatly impressed with him and took him on a botanical expedition to the Scottish Highlands.

Jackson recommended Douglas to the Royal Horticultural Society, which sent him on 3 collecting expeditions to North America. The first journey was to eastern North America 1823, the second to the Pacific Northwest 1824-1827, and the third to the Pacific Northwest and Hawaii 1829-1834.

During these journeys, he introduced many American trees, bushes, and herbs into British cultivation. These included a large number of pine species, and in a letter to Hooker he wrote, “You will begin to think I manufacture pines at my pleasure.”

Douglas died under mysterious circumstances while climbing Mauna Kea in Hawaii in 1834. Apparently, he fell into a pit trap and was possibly crushed by a bull that fell into the same trap. He was last seen at the hut of Englishman Edward ‘Ned’ Gurney, a bullock hunter and escaped convict. Gurney was suspected to have caused Douglas’s death, as Douglas was said to have been carrying more money than Gurney subsequently delivered with the body. (Source: J. Nisbet 2009. The Collector: David Douglas and the Natural History of the Northwest. Sasquatch Books)

More than 80 plants and animals are named after Douglas, including the Douglas squirrel (Tamiasciurus douglasii), the pigmy short-horned lizard (Phrynosoma douglasii), the blue oak (Quercus douglasii), and Douglas’s nightshade (Solanum douglasii). The common name of the Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) was also given in his honour. The Douglas squirrel is described on the page Animals – Mammals: Squirrels, the blue oak on the page Plants: Plants of Sierra Nevada, Douglas fir on the page Plants: Ancient and huge trees.

 

 

 

 

 

After a short stay in England, the family returned to India, settling in Lahore. Here, Gerald’s fascination with animals began, when he saw two slugs entwined, and in the Lahore Zoo, about which he later said, “The zoo was in fact very tiny and the cages minuscule and probably never cleaned out.”

His father died in 1928, and the family moved back to England. In 1932, Gerald started attending school, which he detested, only enjoying natural history lessons. At the age of 9, he was spanked by his headmaster, why his mother took him away from the school, and he never received any further formal education, although he did sometimes have tutors.

In 1934, Gerald’s elder brother Larry was living with his partner Nancy with friends, George and Pam Wilkinson. The same year the Wilkinsons emigrated to the Greek island of Corfu. They wrote to Larry about the island in glowing terms, and the family decided to move there. In Corfu town, they met Spiro Chalikiopoulos, who found them a villa, and he became a close friend of the Durrells.

The children soon learned to speak fairly fluent Greek, but for Louisa it was much harder, and her basic knowledge of the language sometimes caused her anguish, for example when she told the maid to put a bowl of hot soup, which had taken Louisa a long time to cook, outside to cool down, but instead of saying ‘put it outside’ she said ‘throw it out’, and this the maid did.

Gerald felt very much at home in Corfu, spending his days exploring. He collected animals of all kinds, keeping them in the villa in whatever containers he could find, sometimes causing an uproar in the family, for instance when they found water snakes in the bath or scorpions in matchboxes.

He made friends with Theodore Stephanides (1896-1983), a Greek-British doctor, naturalist, astronomer, poet, and writer, who would spend half a day every week with him, teaching him about natural history and many other topics. Durrell later wrote, “If I had the power of magic, I would confer two gifts on every child – the enchanted childhood I had on the island of Corfu, and to be guided and befriended by Theodore Stephanides.”

He wrote 3 books about his childhood on Corfu: My Family and Other Animals (1956), Birds, Beasts, and Relatives (1969), and The Garden of the Gods (1978), all of which include hilarious stories, especially about his brother Larry’s eccentric friends. One example deals with Donald and Max, who arrive dead-drunk at 2 o’clock in the morning, waking up the entire family. Donald climbs down a well behind the house, and when the pair finally leave, they steal the horse-drawn carriage that has been called for, while the owner is running like crazy after them, screaming and almost weeping with rage. Max, who is German, shouts: “Volves, Donald, hurry up!”, which makes Donald whip the poor horse like mad.

In 1939, as the Second World War was approaching, Louisa was warned by her bank that she might not have access to her funds in Corfu, if the war should break out. The family returned to England and finally settled in Bournemouth. Louisa hired Harold Binns as a tutor of Gerald, and he taught him to appreciate poetry and the English language, and to make use of the public library.

In 1942, Durrell was exempted from military duty for medical reasons, but instead he either had to work in a munitions factory or find work on a farm. He chose the farm, but persuaded the owner of a riding school near Bournemouth to tell the authorities that he was doing farmwork if they would ask. In reality, he cleaned the stables, gave riding lessons, and sometimes had brief affairs with women he was teaching to ride.

After the war, Durrell wanted to obtain more knowledge about animals, with the aim of one day having his own zoo. He was offered a job as a student keeper at Whipsnade Zoo. At the age of 21, he inherited £3,000, which had been set aside for him in his father’s will. His long-term goal was to collect animals and start a zoo, and after being turned down by various animal collectors due to his lack of experience, he decided to fund an expedition himself, going to the British Cameroons 1947-48. The sales of the animals on this journey made it possible for him to arrange a second trip to the Cameroons, this time visiting the village of Bafut, where the charming Fon (the local ruler) became his friend. His often hilarious adventures here are described in the book The Bafut Beagles (1954). The animals sold from this trip made it possible for him to go to British Guiana.

In 1949, Durrell had met Jacquie Wolfenden, and despite the fact that her father disapproved of their relationship, they got married the following year. Following the success of a number of radio talks he had given about his trips, and several books, which sold well, Durrell was able to carry out other collecting expeditions in the 1950s, two to Argentina, and a third one to the Cameroons.

Durrell’s dream of having his own zoo came through, when he acquired a property on the island of Jersey. The zoo here opened in March 1959, and despite financial difficulties it has been remarkably successful as a breeding facility for threatened animals from around the world. (Although since 2024 it has again financial difficulties.)

In 1977, on a fundraising trip to the United States, Durrell met Lee McGeorge, a zoology student working on a Ph.D. on the animals of Madagascar. Over the next year he courted her, before she finally agreed to marry him. The wedding took place in May 1979, shortly after Durrell’s divorce from Jackie.

In 1984, Durrell established the Durrell Conservation Academy at the Jersey Zoo, a facility to provide training in captive breeding methods to help re-establish breeding populations of threatened animals in their local environments.

Durrell continued to travel, often for fundraising, visiting a number of countries, including Australia, Russia, and Madagascar. He wrote books about the journeys, and also made films for televison.

In 1995, he died of sepsis (the body’s lack of response to infection), and his ashes are buried in the Jersey Zoo.

Several quotes from his books are found on the page Quotes on Nature.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For two years, he practiced as a doctor in Munich, until he was offered the chair of medicine at the University of Ingolstadt. This university was firmly Roman Catholic, which created problems for Fuchs who had Lutheran views. Therefore, in 1528, he accepted a position as personal physician to Georg der Fromme (George the Pious, 1484-1543), Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach, who was a Protestant.

In 1533, Fuchs was called to Tübingen by Ulrich (1487-1550), Duke of Württemberg, to help in reforming the University of Tübingen in the spirit of humanism. Here he served as professor of medicine for the rest of his life, and he also created the first German garden with medicinal plants.

He published a large number of books on medicinal issues, and also two major botanical works. De historia stirpium commentarii insignes (‘Notable Commentaries on the History of Plants’) was published in Basel in 1542. This work includes about 500 medicinal plants, of which more than a hundred had not been described before. The illustrations are detailed and lifelike. In 1543, it was translated into German, entitled New Kreüterbuch.

The other important book is Codex Fuchs (Codex Vindobonensis Palatinus), published in 9 volumes in Tübingen 1536-1566. This work contains 1,529 coloured plates, depicting medicinal plants.

Fuchs was commemorated by French monk and botanist Charles Plumier (1646-1704) who erected the genus Fuchsia, which he found on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola in 1696.

 

 

 

 

 

In 1836, he was encouraged by the famous botanist William Jackson Hooker (see below) to produce a work entitled Musci Britannici, or Pocket Herbarium of British Mosses arranged and named according to Hooker’s “British Flora”.

His botanical work impressed John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford who became his patron. In 1836, Gardner went to Rio de Janeiro to collect natural history items in northern Brazil, including plants, minerals, shells, birds, mammals, and fishes. Plant specimens were sent to botanical gardens, as well as to private subscribers to the expedition.

Gardner stayed in Brazil until 1841. His results from the expedition were published, entitled Travels in the Interior of Brazil, principally through the Northern Provinces and the Gold Districts, during the years 1836-41.

In 1842, Gardner became a member of the Linnean Society, and the following year the colonial government of Ceylon (today Sri Lanka) appointed him as superintendent of the botanical garden at Peradeniya. He also made extensive plant collections in Ceylon with the aim of producing a complete Flora Zeylanica, which, however, was never published due to his early death, which took place in Kandy, caused by apoplexy.

Several plants are named after Gardner, including Ruizterania gardneriana, a tree in the family Vochysiaceae, and Banisteriopsis gardneriana, a climber in the family Malpighiaceae, both of which he collected in Brazil.

 

 

 

 

 

However, except for some added plants from his own garden and from North America, the Herball is largely a plagiarised English translation of a highly popular Dutch herbal, written by Flemish physician and botanist Rembert Dodoens (1517-1585), born Rembert van Joenckema. The illustrations in Gerard’s Herball are also plagiats, mainly derived from European sources, including many from Neuwe Kreuterbuch, published in 1588 by Jakob Dietrich, better known by the name Tabernaemontanus (see Dietrich above).

Gerard claimed to have learned much about plants from travelling to other parts of the world, but it seems that in reality he travelled very little.

This Gerard seems to have been quite a fraud!

Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus (see below) was not aware of this when, in 1753, he named a genus in the family Acanthaceae to commemorize Gerard, calling it Gerardia (today known as Stenandrium), and Danish botanist Nathaniel Wallich named a species of joint-pine Ephedra gerardiana in his honour.

Numerous examples of Gerard’s advice are quoted on the page Plants: Plants in folklore and poetry.

 

 

 

 

 

He was raised in a poor family in Zürich, but as the boy was very gifted, his father sent him to live with an uncle, who cultivated medicinal herbs for a living. Here the boy became familiar with many plants and their medicinal purposes, which led to his lifelong interest in natural history.

With help from his uncle and his teachers, Conrad was able to attend schools in Zürich, where he studied classical languages. When he was 17 years old, they arranged for him to study theology at universities in France, but due to religious persecution he had to return to Zürich. It was arranged for him to study Hebrew in Strasbourg, and in 1536 he obtained a paid leave of absence to study medicine at the University of Basel.

In 1537, at the age of 21, he published his first book, entitled Lexicon Graeco-Latinum, which earned him the professorship of Greek at the newly founded academy of Lausanne. Besides teaching, he devoted himself to scientific studies, especially botany. In 1541, he obtained his doctoral degree, and then returned to Zürich to practice medicine, and to give lectures at the Carolinum (later the University of Zürich). He spent much of his leisure time going on botanical collection trips in the mountains of Switzerland.

His first major work was Bibliotheca (1545), relating the history of bibliography, a catalogue of all the writers who had ever lived, and their works. Historiae animalium, published 1551-58, was a monumental work on animal life, but he only published two botanical works, Historia plantarum et vires (1541) and Catalogus plantarum (1542). While working on a major botanical work, Historia plantarum, he died from the plague, only 49 years old.

Gessner was honoured by two French botanists, Louis Claude Marie Richard (1754-1821) and Antoine Laurent de Jussieu (1748-1836) who named the genus Gesneria after him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She was born in London, daughter of businessman Mortimer Herbert Morris-Goodall and novelist Margaret Myfanwe Joseph. When she was a child, her father gave her a toy chimpanzee as an alternative to a teddy bear. Goodall claimed that her fondness for it sparked her early love of animals, adding, “My mother’s friends were horrified by this toy, thinking it would frighten me and give me nightmares.”

Goodall’s love of animals brought her to the farm of a friend in Kenya in 1957, where she got a job as a secretary. Her friend advised her to call archaeologist and palaeontologist Louis Leakey (1903-1972) to make an appointment to have a chat about animals.

When they met, Leakey suggested that she should work for him as a secretary. In reality, he was looking for a chimpanzee researcher, believing that the study of great apes could provide indications of the behaviour of early hominids, remains of which he was studying in the Olduvai Gorge. He thought that Jane would be the right person to study chimpanzees, and in 1958 he sent her to London to study primate behaviour and anatomy. Meanwhile, Leakey was raising funds, and in 1960 Goodall went to Gombe Stream National Park.

In 1962, she was joined by Dutch Baron Hugo van Lawick (1937-2002), who was sent to Gombe Stream by National Geographic to film the chimpanzees. In 1964 they got married and later had a son, Hugo (nicknamed Grub). The couple also studied and filmed animals in Serengeti National Park, including wild dogs, hyaenas, and golden ‘jackals’ (today called African golden wolf, as research has shown that it is not closely related to jackals). Their work here resulted in the book Innocent Killers (Collins 1971).

Goodall and van Lawick divorced in 1974, and the following year Goodall married Derek Bryceson (1922-1980), a former member of Tanzania’s parliament and the director of the country’s national parks.

Goodall was awarded a PhD in ethology from the University of Cambridge in 1965. In 1971, she published a celebrated book dealing with her study of chimpanzees, called In the Shadow of Man, which was later translated into no less than 48 languages.

She founded the Jane Goodall Institute in 1977 to promote wildlife conservation, followed by the Roots & Shoots youth programme in 1991, which grew into a global network. Goodall also established wildlife sanctuaries and reforestation projects in Africa, and she campaigned for the ethical treatment of animals in animal testing, husbandry, and captivity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He was born in Cheshire, son of Brian Hodgson and his wife Catherine. His father lost money in a bad investment and had to take various jobs, but the difficulties were great. Young Brian was nominated for the Bengal Civil Service and went to India in 1818, aged 17, as a writer in the British East India Company. In 1819, he was posted as Assistant Commissioner in the Kumaon region, which had been annexed from Nepal, and in 1820 he was made assistant to the resident in Nepal, a post he later took over. He got deeply involved in Nepal politics (too deeply, as it turned out) and was more or less forced to resign in 1844.

The following year he settled in Darjeeling and continued his studies of the peoples of northern India, besides all aspects of natural history. He discovered 39 species of mammals and 124 species of birds, which had not been described previously, and 79 of the bird species were described by himself. He had a huge zoological collection, containing 10,499 specimens, which he later donated to the British Museum. During this period, he was visited by a number of naturalists, including Joseph Dalton Hooker (see below).

In 1858, he returned to England, where he stayed for the rest of his life.

Numerous plants and animals were named in his honour, including Hodgsonia, a genus of climbers in the cucumber family (Cucurbitaceae), Magnolia hodgsonii, and Rhododendron hodgsoni, mountain hawk-eagle or Hodgson’s hawk-eagle (Nisaetus nipalensis), white-throated or Hodgson’s bushchat (Saxicola insignis), and Hodgson’s rat snake (Elaphe hodgsoni).

 

 

 

 

 

After losing both parents, he continued his studies in Bonn, from where he travelled to the Rhine Valley, the Netherlands, southern France, and Switzerland. In 1841 he was back in Berlin, receiving his doctorate in medicine in 1843.

In 1844-45, he accompanied his childhood friend, Prince Friedrich Wilhelm Waldemar of Prussia (1817-1849), as a personal physician on an expedition to India, travelling via Egypt, Aden, and Ceylon (today Sri Lanka) to Calcutta (today Kolkata), and then via Patna, Kathmandu, Benares (today Varanasi), Delhi, and Naini Tal (in Kumaon) to Shimla in Punjab (today Himachal Pradesh).

In Punjab, on December 21, 1845, Hoffmeister was involved in a battle between Brits and Sikhs, in which the Governor-General Lord Harding and Prince Waldemar took part. Hoffmeister died instantly after being hit by a shot.

He had collected numerous plants during the expedition, and back in Germany, his material was examined and described by botanists Johann Friedrich Klotzsch and Christian August Friedrich Garcke. Of the 456 species and 270 genera, about 108 were new to science. The results were published in 1853, entitled Die Botanischen Ergebnisse der Reise seiner königl. Hoheit des Prinzen Waldemar von Preussen in den Jahren 1845 und 1846 (‘Botanical results of the travels of His Royal Highness Prince Waldemar von Preussen in the years 1845 and 1846’).

His brother, A. Hoffmeister, compiled his research and findings and wrote a book under his name, entitled Travels in Ceylon and Continental India: Including Nepal and Other Parts of the Himalayas, to the Borders of Thibet, with Some Notices of the Overland Route, published in London 1848.

Several plants were named in his honour, including a species of bramble, Rubus hoffmeisterianus, and a species of bedstraw, Galium hoffmeisteri. Both are described on the page Plants: Himalayan flora 3.

 

 

 

 

 

The same year, he was appointed assistant surgeon on board HMS Erebus, which, together with HMS Terror, departed on a 4-year-long expedition to Antarctica, Tasmania, and New Zealand. He had ample time to pursue his interest in botany, and his collections from the voyage were later described in Flora Antarctica (1844-47), Flora Novae-Zelandiae (1851-53), and Flora Tasmaniae (1853-59).

In 1846, he was appointed botanist to the Geological Survey of Great Britain, working on palaeobotany, searching for fossil plants in the coal-beds of Wales.

From 1847, he spent 4 years in India, mainly collecting plants for the Kew Gardens. On this journey, he described numerous plants new to science, including no less than 22 rhododendron species from Sikkim and other parts of the eastern Himalaya. In Sikkim, he and his companion, British physician Archibald Campbell (1805-1874) of the Bengal Medical Service, were held prisoners by Tsugphud Namgyal, the local ruler. This incident led to the British annexation of the Sikkim lowlands.

Publications from the stay in India include The Rhododendrons of Sikkim-Himalaya (1849-51), the series Flora Indica (from 1855), together with Thomas Thomson (1817-1878), a fellow student from Glasgow University, and The Flora of British India, published in 7 volumes (1872-1897).

Hooker also undertook other journeys, to Palestine in 1860, to Morocco in 1871, and to the western United States in 1877.

In 1855, he was appointed assistant-director of the Kew Gardens, and in 1865 he succeeded his father as full director, holding the post for 20 years. He was a close friend of the famous Charles Darwin (1809-1882).

At least 40 plant species have been named in his honour, including Hooker’s banksia (Banksia hookeriana), Hooker’s sweet box (Sarcococca hookeriana), described on the page Plants: Himalayan flora 1, and an orchid, Pleione hookeriana, described on the page Plants: Himalayan flora 2. The name of the red toothbrush tree (Grevillea hookeriana) honours either him or his father.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As a young man, William was fascinated by the birds along the Norfolk coast. He studied their behaviour and became skilled in drawing them. In 1805, he discovered a previously undiscribed moss, now known as Buxbaumia aphylla.

At the age of 21, he inherited an estate in Kent from his godfather, which meant that his by now independent means allowed him to travel and study natural history, especially botany. In 1806, he was introduced to Joseph Banks (see above), and the same year he became a member of the Linnean Society in London.

Hooker published the results of a botanical expedition to Iceland in 1809 in a paper named Journal of a Tour in Iceland, even though his notes and specimens were destroyed in a fire on board the ship. In 1815, he married Maria, the eldest daughter of banker Dawson Turner, and then lived in Halesworth for 11 years, where he established a renowned herbarium.

In 1820, he was appointed as the regius professor of botany at the University of Glasgow. His title required him to give lectures to students, and he soon became a very popular lecturer. He expanded the small botanical garden at the university, which over the years became very successful and prominent in the botanical world.

While in Glasgow, Hooker published numerous works, including Flora Londinensis, British Flora, Flora Boreali-Americana, Icones Filicum, The British Jungermanniae, Flora Scotica, The Botany of Captain Beechey’s Voyage to the Bering Sea, Icones Plantarum, Exotic Flora (1823-27), 13 volumes of Curtis’s Botanical Magazine, and the first 7 volumes of Annals of Botany.

He also made the illustrations for botanist James Edward Smith’s (1759-1828) paper Characters of Hookeria, a new Genus of Mosses, with Descriptions of Ten Species, a genus named by Smith in honour of William and his older brother Joseph.

In 1841, Hooker was appointed as director of the Royal Botanical Gardens in Kew, near London. Here he expanded the gardens and established new glasshouses, an arboretum, and a museum of economic botany. In his time, Kew became the centre of a worldwide network of botanical experts.

Following Hooker’s death in 1865, the post as director of the Kew Gardens was taken over by his son Joseph (see above).

Numerous plant names were given in his honour, including Iris hookeriana, a species of onion, Allium hookeri, and an Australian species of sundew, Drosera hookeri. The name of the red toothbrush tree (Grevillea hookeriana) honours either him or his son.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He was born in London, a son of Joseph Hume, a radical Scottish member of parliament, and Maria Burnley. Allan was educated at University College Hospital, where he studied medicine, and later he joined Indian Civil Services, sailing to India in 1849.

The following year he joined the Bengal Civil Service at Etawah (in Hindi called Ishtikapuri) in the North-Western Provinces (today Uttar Pradesh). He regarded the Indian Rebellion of 1857 as a result of misunderstood governance, he himself making a great effort to improve the lives of the common people. The district of Etawah was among the first to be returned to normality, and later Hume’s reforms led to the district being considered a model of development.

His career in the Indian Civil Service included service as a district officer 1849-67, head of a central department 1867-70, and secretary to the government 1870-79. Following the assassination in 1872 of Richard Bourke, 6th Earl of Mayo, who was the viceroy of India, Hume did not get along well with subsequent viceroys, and he was removed from the secretariat in 1879.

While in India, Hume had amassed a huge collection of bird specimens at his home in Shimla, going on collection trips himself, or obtaining specimens from correspondents. He worked for many years on a magnum opus on the birds of India, but following the loss of his manuscript, he gave up ornithology, handing his collection over to the Natural History Museum in London.

He left India in 1894 and went back to London. He got interested in botany and founded the South London Botanical Institute at a ripe age.

At least 8 birds were named in his honour, including Hume’s ground-tit (Pseudopodoces humilis) and Hume’s short-toed lark (Calandrella acutirostris), both described on the page Animals – Birds: Birds in the Indian Subcontinent.

 

 

 

 

 

In 1828, Thomas was admitted to Edinburgh University to study literature, but spent more time attending classes in natural history by Professor Robert Jameson. He then studied medicine and was accepted as an assistant surgeon in the East India Company, arriving in Madras (today Chennai) in southern India in February 1836.

During the following years, he was posted numerous places around India and thus gained a broad knowledge of Indian natural history, having an interest in birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fishes, and invertebrates. In 1858, he went to Darjeeling on sick leave, which gave him the opportunity to study Himalayan fauna before joining the 11th Native Infantry Regiment in Burma (today Myanmar), where he could again study the fauna of an unfamiliar region.

Jerdon published a large number of works on Indian natural history, beginning with A Catalogue of the Birds of the Indian Peninsula (1839-40), which included 420 species. In 1844, he published a selection of 50 coloured lithographs of birds, chiefly of southern India, entitled Illustrations of Indian Ornithology, which included drawings made by Indian artists.

His most important publication was The Birds of India (1862-64) in two volumes, which included 1008 species. However, this work was not without its critics. A reviewer pointed out that Jerdon seemed to be unaware of the significance of geographic distribution and evolution, and he also pointed out problems in his usage of George Gray’s (1808-1872) arrangement of bird classes.

Gray and Jerdon both admired the peculiar Quinarian System, which was developed in 1819 by entomologist William Sharp MacLeay (1792-1865). This system, with emphasis on the number 5, proposes that all taxa are divisible into 5 subgroups, and if fewer than 5 subgroups are known, quinarians believed that a missing subgroup remained to be found. Even before Charles Darwin (1809-1882) proposed his theory of evolution, the system had many opponents.

The reviewer continued: “In thus following the phantasies of Kaup*, and the mad vagaries of Bonaparte* (in his latest writings), we cannot believe that Dr. Jerdon has acted well for his own reputation, nor wisely as regards the class of readers for whom his volumes are specially intended.”

 

 

Several birds were named after him, including Jerdon’s bush-lark (Mirafra affinis) and Jerdon’s leafbird (Chloropsis jerdoni), both described on the page Animals – Birds: Birds in the Indian Subcontinent, and Jerdon’s minivet (Pericrocotus albifrons), described on the page Animals – Birds: Birds in Bagan.

 

 

 

 

 

In 1681, Kaempfer visited Uppsala in Sweden, where he became secretary to ambassador Ludvig Fabritius, whom King Karl (Charles) XI sent through Russia to Persia in 1683. They travelled via Moscow and Kazan to Astrakhan, and then sailed across the Caspian Sea to Nizabad (in present-day Azerbaijan). Kaempfer arranged an expedition to the Baku Peninsula, where he visited ‘the fields of eternal fire’ (burning gas seeping to the surface). In 1684, he reached Isfahan, which was at that time the capital of Persia.

When the embassy staff prepared to return to Sweden, Kaempfer chose to travel as chief surgeon on ships belonging to the Dutch East India Company, which prepared to sail from the Persian Gulf to Batavia (today Jakarta) in the Dutch East Indies (today Indonesia). Despite catching a fever at Bandar Abbas (perhaps malaria), Kaempfer was able to visit Muscat and several locations in western India on the way.

In September 1689, he reached Batavia, where he spent the winter studying Javanese natural history. In May 1690, he travelled to Japan to become a physician at the Dutch trading post on the small island Dejima, near Nagasaki, the only Japanese port open to foreign ships.

Kaempfer stayed 2 years in Japan, collecting a number of local plants, described in the section Flora Japonica in his Amoenitatum Exoticarum (see below). During his stay, he noticed a peculiar tree with distinct bilobed leaves, which was commonly planted at temples and along roads. This tree was the ginkgo, which is so special that it has its own phylum Ginkgophyta, class Ginkgoopsida, order Ginkgoales, family Ginkgoaceae, genus Ginkgo, and species biloba. The curious spelling ginkgo supposedly arose, because Kaempfer’s interpreter pronounced it in this way in the local dialect. In reality, the name of the tree is ginkyo in Japanese.

Kaempfer also collected information on Japanese acupuncture and moxibustion (holding glowing sticks of dried leaves of the mugwort species Artemisia moxa close to the skin). These alternative treating methods were until then unknown in Europe.

In November 1692, he left Japan for Java, returning to Amsterdam 3 years later, after spending 12 years abroad. He was awarded a doctorate in medicine at the University of Leiden, but chose to return to his hometown Lemgo, where he became personal physician of the Count of Lippe.

In Germany, he published Amoenitatum Exoticarum, which included many Japanese plants, for instance a camellia, and the first scientific descriptions of the electric eel and the striped hyaena. Until then, only quite fanciful descriptions had been made of the hyaena.

 

 

 

 

 

In 1735, Pehr was admitted to the Royal Academy of Åbo, and in 1740 he entered the University of Uppsala, where he got acquainted with Carl Linnaeus. Between 1742 and 1746, he was doing field research in Sweden, Russia, and Ukraine. In the latter year, he was appointed docent of natural history and economics at the Royal Academy of Åbo, and the following year he became professor of economics. In 1742, he wrote a book about his research in western Sweden, entitled Pehr Kalms Västgöta och Bohuslänska resa (‘Pehr Kalm’s travels in Västgöta and Bohuslän’).

In 1747, he was appointed by Linnaeus and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to travel to North America to collect seeds and plants that might prove useful for agriculture or industry.

On his journey from Sweden to America Kalm spent 6 months in England, where he met many of the important botanists of the day. He arrived in Pennsylvania in 1748, where he made friends with writer and statesman Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) and naturalist John Bartram (1699-1777), the father of William Bartram (see above).

Kalm made a base for his explorations at the Swedish-Finnish community in Raccoon, New Jersey (today Swedesboro). There he married Anna Margaretha Sjöman, the widow of Johan Sandin, the former pastor in Raccoon. His botanical collection trips went as far west as Niagara Falls and as far north as Montreal and Quebec.

He wrote an account of his travels, entitled Pehr Kalms Resa Till Norra Amerika, in English published as Peter Kalm’s Travels in North America: The English Version of 1770. In this work, he not only described the flora and fauna, but also the lives of Native Americans and of British and French colonists. He also published the first scientific paper on the North American cicada Magicicada septendecim, which has a 17-year life cycle.

Kalm returned to Finland in 1751, where he got a post as professor at the Royal Academy of Åbo. In addition to teaching, he established a botanical garden in the city.

Linnaeus honoured him by giving a genus of 10 species in the heath family (Ericaceae) the name Kalmia.

 

 

 

 

 

In 1829, Kaup published Skizze zur Entwickelungsgeschichte der europäischen Thierwelt (‘Sketch of the Developmental History of the European Animal World’), in which he proposed that animals developed from lower to higher forms, from the amphibians through the birds to the beasts of prey. However, he later repudiated this work, becoming an ardent admirer of the peculiar Quinarian System (see Jerdon above). When Charles Darwin (1809-1882) proposed his theory of evolution, Kaup was against its doctrines.

In the rich fossil deposits around Darmstadt he carried out palaeontological research, publishing his acclaimed Beiträge zur näheren Kenntniss der urweltlichen Säugethiere (‘Contributions to a closer knowledge of mammals of the distant past’, 1855-62). He also wrote Classification der Säugethiere und Vögel (‘Classification of mammals and birds’, 1844), and Die Gavial-artigen Reste aus dem Lias (‘The gharial-like remains from the Lias’ (a period in the Early Jurassic), 1842-44).

 

 

 

 

 

The main purposes of this journey were to describe this vast area, which was unknown to the white man in those days, and to find an easy access to the west coast, which would make it easier to open the area to trade and settlement.

Lewis was born in Albemarle County, in the Colony of Virginia, son of William Lewis and Lucy Meriwether. His father died in 1779, and Lewis moved with his mother and stepfather, Captain John Marks, to Georgia.

As a child, Lewis improved his skills as a hunter and outdoorsman, and he seemed to get along well with the local Cherokees. From an early age, he was interested in natural history. At the age of 13, he was sent back to Virginia for education by private tutors.

In 1794, Lewis joined the Virginia militia and was sent with a troop to put an end to the Whiskey Rebellion, a protest against a tax put on domestic production of whiskey in 1791 by the federal government. The following year he joined the United States Army as an ensign (equivalent to today’s second lieutenant). By 1800, he had become a captain, but left the army in 1801, as he was appointed as secretary to President Jefferson, whom he knew from Albemarle County.

In 1803, he was chosen by Jefferson to undertake an expedition to the West. In his book Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West (1996), American author Stephen Ambrose (1936-2002) writes: “Jefferson gave his reasons for picking Lewis to Dr. Benjamin Rush of Philadelphia: “Capt. Lewis is brave, prudent, habituated to the woods, & familiar with Indian manners & character. He is not regularly educated, but he possesses a great mass of accurate observation on all the subjects of nature which present themselves here, & will therefore readily select those only in his new route which shall be new. He has qualified himself for those observations of longitude & latitude necessary to fix the points of the line he will go over.”

During the 3-year long expedition, Lewis described over 100 species of mammals, birds, and fishes, and a number of plants, which were new to science, including the grizzly bear (Ursus arctos ssp. horribilis), the mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus), the pronghorn (Antilocapra americana), the black-tailed prairie dog (Cynomys ludovicianus), the American badger (Taxidea taxus), the bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus), the whistling swan (Cygnus columbianus), Clark’s nutcracker (Nucifraga columbiana), and Lewis’s woodpecker (Melanerpes lewis).

After returning from the expedition, Lewis received a reward of 1,600 acres (650 hectares) of land. He attempted to publish the results from the journey, but had difficulty completing his writing.

In 1807, he was appointed governor of the northern part of the recently acquired Louisiana Territory, a post he held for two years. In September 1809, he set out for Washington, D.C., hoping to receive payment of drafts he had drawn against the War Department, an action which could leave him ruined.

On the way, Lewis stopped at an inn southwest of Nashville on October 11, and after dinner he retired to his cabin. Before dawn, the innkeeper’s wife heard gunshots, and her servants found Lewis badly injured from several gunshot wounds to the head and gut. He bled to death shortly after sunrise. Whether it was suicide or murder is still an issue of debate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When his father Nicolaus (Nils) Ingemarsson (meaning ‘the son of Ingemar’) was admitted to the university in Lund, Skåne, he had to take on a family name, and he chose the name Linnæus, inspired by a great linden tree (lind in Swedish), which grew on the family homestead in Småland. When Carl was born, he was named Carl Linnæus.

Even in his early years, Carl was fond of flowers. In 1717, he was sent to the a grammar school in the city of Växjö, but instead of studying he often went into the countryside to look for plants. The headmaster Daniel Lannerus, who was an amateur botanist, noticed Carl’s interest in botany and introduced him to Johan Rothman, the state doctor of Småland and a teacher at Katedralskolan (a high school) in Växjö, who was also a botanist, and he broadened Carl’s interest in botany and helped him develop an interest in medicine.

At the age of 21, Carl was admitted to the university in Lund, but already the following year he decided to attend Uppsala University on the advice of Rothman, who believed it would be a better choice if Carl wanted to study medicine and botany, mainly because of two professors who taught these subjects at Uppsala, Olof Rudbeck the Younger (1660-1740) and Lars Roberg (1664-1742).

In 1729, Carl wrote a thesis, Praeludia Sponsaliorum Plantarum, on plant sexual reproduction. This attracted the attention of Rudbeck, who selected Carl to give lectures at the university the following year.

In 1732, Carl planned to travel to Lapland, inspired by Rudbeck who had made the journey in 1695. However, the written results of that exploration were lost in a fire in 1702. Carl hoped to find new plants, animals, and possibly valuable minerals, and he was also keen on studying the customs of the native reindeer-herding Sami nomads. He was awarded a grant from the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala for his journey.

For 6 months, he explored the area, and among his results was the description of about 100 previously unidentified plant species, which became the basis of his book Flora Lapponica, published in 1737.

Linnaeus spent 3 years in the Netherlands 1935-38, partly to obtain his doctoral degree. He soon met Jan Frederik Gronovius (1690-1762), an acclaimed botanist, and when Linnaeus showed him a manuscript, in which he described a new system for classifying plants, Gronovius was very impressed, and offered to help paying for the printing. Scottish physician Isaac Lawson also contributed with money, and the manuscript was published as Systema Naturæ in 1735. During his stay in the Netherlands, Linnaeus also got acquainted with many other scientists.

Returning to Sweden in 1738, Linnaeus was employed as a physician in Stockholm, and the following year he married Sara Elisabeth Moræa. The couple had 7 children, of whom one died shortly after birth.

In May 1741, Linnaeus was appointed professor of medicine at Uppsala University, but was able to change to natural history instead, and during the following years he reconstructed and expanded the botanical garden at the university.

Shortly after being appointed professor, he was ordered by the Riksdag (government) to undertake an expedition to the islands Öland and Gotland, accompanied by 6 students from the university. The purpose was to make a detailed description of natural history, economy, and ancient antiquities, especially of valuable minerals, and plants useful in medicine. The results were published in 1745, entitled Carl Linnæi Öländska och Gotländska Resa, förrättad År 1741 (in Swedish).

Linnaeus was commissioned by the Government to undertake two similir journeys, in 1746 to the province of Västergötland, and in 1749 to the province of Skåne. The results were published in the books Carl Linnæi Wästgöta-Resa, förrättad År 1746 (1747), and Carl Linnæi Skånska Resa, förrättad År 1749 (1750).

In 1745, Linnaeus published two books, Flora Suecica, which deals with Swedish plants, and Fauna Suecica, which deals with Swedish animals. In 1753, he published Species Plantarum, the work was the starting point for modern botanical binominal nomenclature. Since the initial publication of Systema Naturæ in 1735, the book had been expanded and reprinted 10 times. The 10th edition, which was released in 1758, was the starting point for zoological binominal nomenclature.

The Swedish King Adolf Frederick (1710-1771) granted Linnaeus nobility in 1757, and in 1761 he was ennobled, taking the name Carl von Linné – the name he is known by in Scandinavia.

Linnaeus’s friend and mentor Jan Frederik Gronovius (see above) honoured him by proposing the genus name Linnaea for the twinflower, Linnaeus’s favourite flower.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1950, he married Patsy Southgate, and they had two children together. He moved to Paris, where, in 1953, he was one of the founders of the literary magazine The Paris Review.

Matthiessen divorced in 1956 and began travelling extensively. In 1959, he published the book Wildlife in America, in which he relates how human activities in America throughout history has endangered countless animals and brought several to extinction. A thorougly revised edition was published in 1987.

In 1961, Mathiessen joined the Harvard-Peabody Expedition to New Guinea, going to the Baliem Valley to describe the life of the Kurelu, a Stone Age tribe. The following year, he published the book Under the Mountain Wall: A Chronicle of Two Seasons in Stone Age New Guinea.

In 1963, he married Deborah Love, and the couple started practicing Zen Buddhism. Deborah was later diagnosed with cancer and died in 1972.

The acclaimed novel At Play in the Fields of the Lord was published in 1965. It describes a group of American missionaries whose goal is to convert a South American indigenous tribe to Christianity, which ends in disaster.

In 1973, Matthiessen joined American biologist George Schaller (see below) on an expedition to the Nepal Himalaya, which inspired him to write the highly praised book The Snow Leopard (1978), which deals with nature in Nepal, as well as with spirituality. He later became a Buddhist priest of the White Plum Asanga, a community of Zen followers. In 1980, he married Maria Eckhart in a Zen ceremony.

Matthiessen was much interested in the Wounded Knee Occupation in 1973, where Oglala Lakota and followers of the American Indian Movement occupied the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, for 71 days as a protest against conditions on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and the federal government’s lack of fulfilling treaty obligations. He also took an interest in the trial and conviction of Leonard Peltier, an American Indian Movement activist, who was accused of killing two FBI agents, Coler and Williams, during a shootout in 1975 on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Peltier admitted that he was firing at the agents, but maintains that he did not kill them. He was found guilty in 1977 and sentenced to two consecutive life terms. However, in 2024 President Biden changed his sentence to home confinement, and he could return to the reservation.

Matthiessen wrote an account of these incidents, called In the Spirit of Crazy Horse (1983), which caused him and his publisher Viking Penguin to be sued for libel by the FBI, and also by William Janklow, former governor of South Dakota. Both lawsuits were dismissed, as the judge claimed that Matthiessen had the “freedom to develop a thesis, conduct research in an effort to support the thesis, and to publish an entirely one-sided view of people and events.”

Matthiessen’s other books on natural issues include Blue Meridian: The Search for the Great White Shark (1971), The Tree Where Man Was Born (1972), and Sand Rivers (1981), both dealing with East African nature, Tigers in the Snow (2000), about the endangered Siberian tiger, and Birds of Heaven: Travels With Cranes (2001). Several quotes from his books are found on the page Quotes on Nature.

He was diagnosed with leukemia in 2012 and died two years later.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He became the first English veterinary surgeon, and back in England he established a “hospital for horses” in London. He proposed new surgical methods for curing lameness in horses, and produced machines to manufacture horseshoes.

His good reputation for his treatment methods led to the attention of the East India Company, which hired him to buy breeding horses for their stud at Pusa, Bengal. Arriving there in 1808, he found that the stud had been gravely neglected and needed better breeding stock. He improved the conditions of the stud and then travelled around in northern India in search of better horses. However, he failed to acquire ideal breeding horses, but in Benares (today Varanasi) he heard that Bukhara (in present-day Uzbekistan) supposedly had “the greatest horse market in the world.” He also learned that fine breeding horses might be found in Tibet.

In 1812, Moorcroft and Captain Hyder Young Hearsey (1782-1840) disguised themselves as Hindu pilgrims, travelling through Garhwal (in present-day Uttarakhand) with a stock of merchandise for trading with the Tibetans. At the Niti Pass they were met by Sikhs, who had strict orders from Lhasa not to let any foreigners into Tibet.

However, Moorcroft was able to gain the friendship of two influential Sikhs, and the two Englishmen were able to travel across the Tibetan plateau, guided by Amer Singh, son of one of the Sikhs. The governor of western Tibet agreed to sell them Cashmere wool, and granted permission for them to travel to the sacred lake Manasarowar, which they explored extensively.

Back in Bengal, they were severely critizised for not finding breeding horses. However, Moorcroft was not discouraged, and in 1819 he was permitted to go to Turkestan to buy stallions. His preparations took a year, and accompanied by George Trebeck (1800-1825), second in command, and almost 300 other persons, 16 horses and mules with £4,000 of trading goods as well as medical supplies and equipment, he arrived in Ladakh in 1820. He intended to cross over several high passes into Turkestan, but at Leh he was not granted permission by the authorities. Instead, he spent a long time exploring Ladakh and Kashmir.

In 1823, he again attempted to reach Turkestan, this time via the Hindu Kush, but were stopped by a Muslim chieftain who demanded a huge sum to let the party through. They returned to Srinigar and continued to Afghanistan, which they reached in December 1823. The party continued to Bukhara, reaching it in February 1825, but Moorcroft found few horses to buy, and the journey was a commercial failure. On the return journey both Moorcroft and Trebeck died of a fever in Afghanistan.

Moorcroft was the first European to make botanical collections in western Tibet and Kashmir. Among 23 plant specimens, which he sent to Nathaniel Wallich (see below), were several species new to science, including Gentianella moorcroftiana and Salvia moorcroftiana (both species are described on the page Plants: Himalayan flora 2).

His observations were published in 1841 as Travels in the Himalayan provinces of Hindustan and the Panjab; in Ladakh and Kashmir; in Peshawar, Kabul, Kunduz, and Bokhara; by William Moorcroft and George Trebeck, from 1819-1825, edited by Horace Wilson.

 

 

 

 

 

In 1849, the family emigrated to the United States, as his father found that the faith and practice of the Church of Scotland was not strict enough. He started a farm in Wisconsin and joined the Disciples of Christ, a subgroup of the Campbellite Restoration Movement (a reformist movement, which arose in the United States in the early 1800s). Despite being forced to learn by heart all of the New Testament and most of the Old Testament, John remained a deeply spiritual man, which is evident from his writings.

At the age of 22, Muir began studying at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In the university park he received his first botany lesson, as a fellow student picked a flower from a huge black locust tree and used it to explain how this big tree was related to the garden pea. Later Muir wrote, “This fine lesson charmed me and sent me flying to the woods and meadows in wild enthusiasm.”

John’s brother Daniel moved to southern Ontario to avoid being drafted during the Civil War. Muir travelled to the same region in 1864, where he explored woods and swamps, and collected plants along the shore of Lake Huron.

In 1866, he returned to the United States, settling in Indianapolis to work in a wagon wheel factory. The following spring an accident changed his life, as a file he was using slipped and struck him in the right eye, cutting into the cornea. Then, to make things worse, his left eye failed. He stayed for 6 weeks in a dark room, worrying whether he would end up blind, but luckily he regained his sight. Later he wrote, “This affliction has driven me to the sweet fields. God has to nearly kill us sometimes, to teach us lessons.”

The following autum, Muir walked about 1,600 km from Kentucky to Florida, related in his book A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf (1916). He didn’t choose any specific route, but went by the “wildest, leafiest, and least trodden way I could find.”

When he arrived at Cedar Key, he began working at Richard Hodgson’s sawmill. However, only 3 days later, he came down with an attack of malaria, which almost killed him. After spending 3 months, most of the time in a delirious state, his condition improved. He later said that the loving care of the Hodgsons undoubtedly saved his life.

One evening in January 1868, Muir saw a ship, the Island Belle, which was sailing for Cuba. He decided to travel onboard it to Havana, where he studied shells and flowers and visited the local botanical garden. Then he sailed to New York City, and from there booked passage to California, where he settled in San Francisco.

Shortly after, he went for a week to Yosemite, a place he had read about, and seeing it for the first time, he noted, “I was overwhelmed by the landscape, scrambling down steep cliff faces to get a closer look at the waterfalls, whooping and howling at the vistas, jumping tirelessly from flower to flower.”

The following year, he returned to Yosemite, where he worked for Mr. Delaney, a local sheep farmer. This stay is described in his book My First Summer in the Sierra (1911). Here is a passage from the book:

“Counted the wool bundles this morning as they bounced through the narrow corral gate. About three hundred are missing, and as the shepherd could not go to seek them, I had to go. (…) until I found the outgoing trail of the wanderers. It led far up the ridge into an open place surrounded by a hedge-like growth of ceanothus* chaparal**. Carlo [a dog] knew what I was about, and eagerly followed the scent until we came up to them, huddled in a timid, silent bunch. They had evidently been here all night and all the forenoon, afraid to go out to feed. Having escaped restraint, they were, like some people we know of, afraid of their freedom, did not know what to do with it, and seemed glad to get back into the old familiar bondage.”

 

 

 

In 1880, Muir married Louisa Strentzel, and for 10 years he worked with his father-in-law in his orchards in Martinez, California. The couple had two daughters. Muir enjoyed the natural environment and read essays of author Ralph Waldo Emerson (1802-1882), who wrote about the very life that Muir was living. He often went alone on trips into Yosemite, carrying “only a tin cup, a handful of tea, a loaf of bread, and a copy of Emerson.”

In 1892, Professor Henry Senger, a philologist at the University of California, Berkeley, contacted Muir with the idea of forming a local ‘Sierra Club’. On May 28, the first meeting in this club was held, and one week later Muir was elected president, a post he held until his death 22 years later.

In 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) accompanied Muir on a visit to Yosemite. On the way, Muir told the president about state mismanagement of the valley and the exploitation of its resources. Even before they entered the park, he was able to convince Roosevelt that the best way to protect the valley was through federal control and management.

After seeing the magnificent splendor of the valley, the president asked Muir to show him the real Yosemite. They set off, largely by themselves, and camped in the back country. They slept in the open at Glacier Point, and had fresh snowfall in the morning. It was a night Roosevelt never forgot, and he later said, “Lying out at night under those giant Sequoias was like lying in a temple built by no hand of man, a temple grander than any human architect could by any possibility build.”

During the following years, Muir increased efforts by the Sierra Club to consolidate park management, and in 1906 Congress transferred Mariposa Grove and Yosemite Valley to the park.

Several quotes from Muir’s books are found on the page Quotes on Nature.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1750, Linnaeus suggested him to travel to Asia as chaplain on board the Swedish Ostindian Company ship Prins Carl. He spent 4 months studying flora, fauna, and culture of the Canton region (today Guangzhou) in southern China. On its way there, the ship also visited Java in Dutch Ostindia (today Indonesia).

Returning home in 1752, he contributed more than 600 plant species to Linnaeus, who was able to include them in his Species Plantarum, published in 1753.

In 1757, Osbeck published an account of his work in China, called Dagbok öfwer en ostindisk Resa åren 1750, 1751, 1752. Med anmärkningar uti naturkunnigheten, främmande folkslags språk, seder, hushållning, m.m. (‘Diary of a journey to the East Indies 1750, 1751, 1752. With notes about lore on nature, languages, habits, and household of foreign peoples, etc.’).

In 1755, Osbeck became house prist for diplomat, politician, ambassador, and member of the Council of State, Count Carl Gustaf Tessin (1695-1770), who resided at Åkerö Castle. He also made Osbeck administrator of a natural history collection at Läckö Castle. He was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1758.

In 1760, he became parish priest of Våxtorp and Hasslöv, Halland. Here he published Utkast till Flora Hallandica (‘Draft regarding the flora of Halland’, 1788), and a hand-written manuscript named Prodromus insectorum Hallandiæ (‘Preliminary list of insects of Halland’, 1773).

He was honoured by Linnaeus, who named a genus of plants in the family Melastomataceae after him. Pictures, depicting Osbeckia, are shown on the pages Plants: Himalayan flora 2, and In praise of the colours violet, purple and lilac.

 

 

 

 

 

He then settled at The Hague, and his new system of animal classification was praised by French zoologist and paleontologist Georges Cuvier (1769-1832), one of the leading natural scientist in Europe. In 1766, Pallas wrote Miscellanea Zoologica, which included descriptions of several animals new to science, which he had discovered in Dutch museum collections. His father called him back to Berlin, where he began work on his Spicilegia Zoologica (1767-1780).

In 1767, Pallas was invited by Russian Empress Catherine II (1729-1796) to become a professor at the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. Between 1768 and 1774, he led an expedition to the Caspian Sea, the Ural and Altai Mountains, Lake Baikal, and the upper Amur River. His work from this expedition was published in 3 volumes 1771-76, entitled Reise durch verschiedene Provinzen des Russischen Reichs (‘Journey through various provinces of the Russian Empire’), dealing with geology, mineralogy, botany, zoology, ethnography, and religion.

Pallas settled in St. Petersburg, teaching natural history to Empress Catherine’s grandsons Alexander and Constantine. He was provided with plants collected by other naturalists to produce Flora Rossica, published between 1784 and 1815, and started work on Zoographica Rosso-Asiatica, which was published between 1811 and 1831.

Pallas led a second expedition to southern Russia 1793-94, visiting the Crimea, the Black and Caspian Seas, and the Caucasus Mountains. His account of this expedition was published 1799-1801, titled Bemerkungen auf einer Reise in die Südlichen Statthalterschaften des Russischen Reichs (‘Notes from a trip to the southern lieutenancies of the Russian Empire’).

Empress Catherine gave him a large estate in Crimea, where he lived until 1810. He then returned to Berlin, where he died the following year.

Numerous animals are named for Pallas, including the manul, or Pallas’s cat (Otocolobus manul), a small cat described by him in 1776, Pallas’s pika or mouse hare (Ochotona pallasi), also known as Mongolian pika, Pallas’s sandgrouse (Syrrhaptes paradoxus), Pallas’s fish-eagle (Haliaeetus leucoryphus), and the great black-headed gull (Ichthyaetus ichthyaetus), also known as Pallas’s gull.

 

 

 

 

 

Following his father’s death in 1610, he studied medicine in Rostock, and also travelled to Holland and France. He obtained his degree in Wittenberg in 1630, had for some years a practice in Lübeck, and was then given a professorship in Rostock. When his colleague in Rostock, professor Jakob Fabricius, was appointed personal physician of Danish King Christian IV (1577-1648), Paulli managed to become a professor of anatomi, surgery, and botany at Copenhagen University in 1639.

To achieve an improved knowledge of the human anatomy, he managed to found an anatomical ‘theatre’ at the university in 1644, Domus anatomica, in which deceased persons were dissected for students. When Thomas Bartholin in 1649 took over the title as professor of anatomy, Paulli was given a position as pastor, but shortly after he was appointed personal physician of King Frederik III.

Paulli had a great interest in botany, especially medicinal herbs, and in 1648 he published Flora Danica, Det er: Dansk Urtebog (‘Flora Danica, i.e. Danish herbal’) in 3 volumes, and he established a large and valuable herbarium. Among his other writings were Quadripartitum botanicum de simplicium medicamentorum facultatibus (‘Botanical work in 4 parts, describing the faculties of simple medicines’, 1639-40).

Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus (see above) honoured him by giving a genus of bushes, small trees, and lianas in the soapberry family (Sapindaceae) the name Paullinia.

Numerous examples of Paulli’s advice are quoted on the page Plants: Plants in folklore and poetry.

 

 

 

 

 

When he was still posted abroad, Pliny began writing Bella Germaniae (“Wars in Germania”) in 20 volumes. His most famous work is Naturalis Historia (‘Natural History’), an encyclopedia in 37 volumes, dealing with numerous topics, including geography, nature, and human knowledge.

In 79, he was living in Misenum (near today’s Naples), where he commanded the fleet. He died while attempting to rescue people from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

Numerous examples of Pliny’s advice are quoted on the page Plants: Plants in folklore and poetry.

 

 

 

 

 

Przhevalsky studied at the military academy in St. Petersburg, and in 1864 he began teaching geography at the military school in Warsaw. In 1867, he requested to be transferred to Irkutsk, central Siberia, from where he intended to explore areas around the Ussuri River, a tributary of the great Amur River on the border to China. The expedition lasted two years, and Przhevalsky published an account of it, entitled Travels in the Ussuri Region, 1867-69.

During a 3-year expedition 1870-73, he travelled across the Gobi Desert to Beijing, then explored the upper Yangtze River, and in 1872 crossed into Tibet. During the expedition, no less than about 5,000 plants, 1,000 birds, 70 reptiles, 130 mammals, and 3,000 insect species were collected.

In 1876-77, accompanied by 10 men, 24 camels, 4 horses, and 3 tonnes of baggage, and carrying 25,000 rubles, Przhevalsky travelled through eastern Turkestan across the Tian Shan Mountains, reaching what he believed to be Qinghai Lake. However, the camels were of poor quality, and the expedition was harried by disease. Obtaining better camels and horses, 72,000 rounds of ammunition, and large quantities of brandy and tea, the expedition set out for Lhasa, but did not reach it.

Again, in 1879-80, Przhevalsky tried to reach Lhasa, travelling to Qinghai Lake, and then crossing the Tian Shan into Tibet. However, about 260 km from Lhasa, they were turned back by Tibetan officials.

In 1883-85, he went from Kyakhta across the Gobi Desert to Alashan and the eastern Tian Shan, turning back at the Yangtze. From Qinghai Lake, the expedition travelled to Hotan and Lake Issyk Kul (in present-day Kyrgyzstan). On the shore of Issyk Kul, in the town of Karakol, Przhevalsky died of typhus.

His writings include Mongolia, the Tangut Country, and the Solitudes of Northern Tibet (1875), and From Kulja, Across the Tian Shan to Lob-Nor (1879).

He also described several species, which were previously unknown to science, including Przewalski’s horse (Equus ferus ssp. przewalskii), also known as takhi, Przewalski’s gazelle (Procapra przewalskii), and the wild Bactrian camel (Camelus ferus). A picture, depicting Przewalski’s horse, is shown on the page Animals – Animals as servants of Man: Horse, donkey and mule, and the Bactrian camel is described on the page Animals – Animals as servants of Man: Camels.

 

 

 

 

 

Originally, he was destined to become a merchant, but during a visit to Sinai in 1817 he met two explorers, English artist and Egyptologist Henry Salt (1780-1827), and Swiss geographer and orientalist Johann Ludwig Burckhardt (1784-1817), with whom he explored the Giza Pyramids. He took an interest in natural history and was elected a member of the Senckenbergische Naturforschende Gesellschaft (‘Senckenberg Society of Nature Research’) in Frankfurt, and he attended lectures in botany and zoology at the universities in Pavia and Genoa.

Rüppell arranged an expedition in 1821, travelling through the Sinai desert, reaching the Gulf of Aqaba the following year. Then he proceeded to Alexandria, visiting Mount Sinai on the way, and then travelled up the Nile to Nubia, collecting specimens in the area. The party also planned to visit Abyssinia (today Ethiopia), but only reached Massawa (in present-day Eritrea). Several members of the expedition were ill, and Rüppel decided to go back to Cairo, where they arrived in 1825.

In 1830, Rüppell returned to Africa, sent by the Senckenberg Naturforschende Gesellschaft. He climbed Mount Sinai, and the following year the expedition was based at Massawa for 6 months, while he collected plants and animals from the Red Sea.

Then they went inland to Arkeko, and on the way they met an Abyssinian trader from Gondar, whose caravan had 49 camels and 40 mules and donkeys. They travelled together to Adigrat in the Tigre Region and then through the valley of the Tacazze River to the Simien Mountains. Here he studied the local fauna, including the Simien wolf (Canis simensis), the Walia ibex (Capra walie), and the Gelada baboon (Theropithecus gelada), and he collected a giant species of lobelia, Lobelia rhynchopetalum.

In Gondar, Rüppell was granted an audience with the local Emperor Aito Saglu Denghe. He collected specimens near Lake Tana and along the uppermost part of the Blue Nile, and in 1833 he left Gondar, travelling to a monastery in Kiratza. The party then returned to Massawa, from where they sailed via Jidda to Egypt, and then continued to Marseille, and back to Frankfurt.

From his collections, about 100 new plant species have been described. He and others described the vertebrates encountered on the expeditions in a series of publications. It is estimated that Rüppell himself described 32 new genera and 450 species of animals. He also published accounts of his travels: Reisen in Nubien, Kordofan und dem peträischen Arabien, vorzüglich in geographisch-statistischer Hinsicht: mit acht Kupfern und vier Karten (‘Travels in Nubia, Kordofan, and Petraean Arabia, especially from a geographic-statistical perspective: with 8 copperplate engravings and 4 maps’), published in 1829, and Reise in Abyssinien, published in 1838 in 2 volumes.

Numerous animal species have been named in honour of Rüppell, including Rüppell’s fox (Vulpes rueppellii), Rüppell’s agama (Agama rueppelli), Rüppell’s vulture (Gyps rueppellii), Rüppell’s starling (Lamprotornis purpuroptera), and Rüppell’s parrot (Poicephalus rueppellii).

 

 

 

 

 

In 1959, at the age of 26, Schaller went to Africa to study mountain gorillas in the Virunga Mountains for 2 years. At that time, very little was known about the life of gorillas in the wild, and Schaller’s research showed how intelligent and gentle these apes are, contrary to the common belief. His results were published as The Mountain Gorilla: Ecology and Behavior, in 1963.

Schaller and his wife Kay stayed in Kanha National Park in central India 1963-64 to study tigers, and in 1966 they went to Tanzania to study social behaviour of lions and other large cats.

In 1973, Schaller went to the Himalaya to study bharal, also known as blue sheep, and snow leopard in Dolpo, western Nepal. He also studied a rare goat, the markhor, in Pakistan, and his adventures in the Himalaya are related in the book Stones of Silence: Journeys in the Himalaya (1980), in which he describes his fear that these magnificent animals would be eradicated, turning the Himalaya into ‘stones of silence’.

In the late 1970s, he went to Brazil to study jaguar, capybara, caimans, and other animals, and in 1980 he carried out research on the giant panda in the Wolong Nature Reserve in the Sichuan Province. His experiences here resulted in the book The Last Panda, in which he describes the fate of this magnificent bear, and also his thoughts about conservation politics in general.

Schaller and his wife travelled to China’s Qiang Tang (Chang Tang) region in 1988 to study the chiru (Tibetan antelope). When he returned to this area in 2003, he found that the wildlife had rebounded in the meantime. The wild yak population, which was estimated at only 13 individuals, had grown to over 187. In a letter to the World Wildlife Fund Schaller wrote, “The Tibet Forestry Department has obviously made a dedicated and successful effort in protecting the wildlife.”

In 1994, Schaller and Alan Rabinowitz were the first scientists to study the rare saola, a cow-like animal in Laos, and later the same year Schaller rediscovered the Vietnamese warty pig, once thought extinct. In 1996, he located a herd of Tibetan red deer, which had also been regarded as gone extinct.

In 2007, Schaller worked with officials in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and China to develop a ‘Peace Park’, which would protect 32,000 square km of habitat for the endangered Marco Polo sheep, which had been ruthlessly hunted by trophy hunters. However, as of 2025, the park has still not been created. Sometimes things work slowly.

In 2017, newly discovered species of scorpion was named Liocheles schalleri in honour of Schaller, to acknowledge his significant contributions to conservation of endangered species around the globe.

Several quotes from his books are found on the page Quotes on Nature.

 

 

 

 

 

Despite his great knowledge he was never employed at any university, or at the royal Danish court, which indicates that he was an autodidact herbalist. In his hometown Malmø he was employed as a vejermester, a civil servant in charge of controlling food products and their weight. Besides this job, he also had an herbal garden, for which he collected plants, and with support from patrons he published a number of books.

Despite his lack of a formal education as a physician, his books were nevertheless used at the university, and he was undoubtedly recognized as an authority and a competent healer.

Altogether, he published 6 small books on healing, which were published collectively in 1557, entitled Henrick Smids Lægebog (‘Henrick Smid’s Medical Book’).

He also published books on other subjects, including botany, theology, and language.

Numerous examples of Smid’s advice are quoted on the page Plants: Plants in folklore and poetry.

 

 

 

 

 

In 1808, he graduated and started to practice medicine in Norway. In 1814, he was appointed professor of national economy and botany at the newly founded Royal Frederik University in Christiania (today Oslo).

However, instead of taking up the position, he travelled abroad to establish contacts and observe the development of various botanical gardens in Europe. His first journey was to Scotland, and from there he continued to London, where he met the Prussian geologist Leopold von Buch (1774-1853), who planned to visit the Canary Islands and Madeira, and Smith seized the opportunity to participate in an expedition with an experienced scientist.

The expedition took place in 1815, and when Smith returned he brought around 600 species of plants, of which about 50 were new to science, including the Canary Islands pine (Pinus canariensis).

During the trip, Smith had learned a lot about geology, and the Royal Society of London suggested him to participate in a scientific expedition, led by Captain James Hingston Tuckey, to determine whether the Congo River had any connection to the Niger Basin further west.

The expedition started in 1816, but their ship HMS Congo was so heavy that it could only negotiate the lower part of the river, and the lighter vessel Dorothy was stopped by rapids 160 km inland. The expedition members continued on foot along the river, but lack of food, hostile natives, and fever soon took their toll, and the expedition members had to turn back. Altogether, 18 of the 56 participants perished, including Smith.

Captain Tuckey made sure that Smith’s diary and plant specimens were shipped to London. His collection consisted of 620 species, of which 250 were new to science.

Two animals were named in honour of Smith, the wire-tailed swallow (Hirundo smithii), which he discovered during the expedition, and Smith’s African water snake (Grayia smythii).

 

 

 

 

 

Solander enrolled at Uppsala University in 1750, where he studied languages, humanities, and law. The professor of botany was Carl Linnaeus, who was soon impressed by Solander’s ability. He persuaded his father to let Daniel study natural history instead.

In 1760, Solander went to England to promote the new Linnean system of classification (see Linnaeus above). In 1763, he was employed at the British Museum, where he was cataloguing the natural history collections. Here he met Joseph Banks (see above), and they became friends.

In 1768, Solander gained leave of absence from the British Museum to accompany Banks on board HMS Endeavour, the first voyage of Captain James Cook (1728-1779) to the Pacific Ocean. The crew and scientists spent almost 7 weeks ashore on the east coast of Australia, while the ship, which had become damaged on the Great Barrier Reef, was repaired. Banks, Solander, and Spöring made the first major collection of Australian plants, and almost 800 specimens were illustrated, later to appear in Banks’s Florilegium (see Banks above).

Solander also wrote a manuscript, in which he described all plant species collected in New Zealand in 1768. Its title was Primitiae Florae Novae Zelandiae (‘Beginnings of a New Zealand Flora’). However, it was never published, but was available for study at the Natural History section of the British Museum.

Back in England, Solander resumed his duties at the British Museum, but also assisted Banks on the Florilegium. In 1772, he accompanied Banks on his voyage to Iceland and other places (see Banks above). Solander was keeper of the Natural History Department of the British Museum between 1773 and 1782. In 1773, he became a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Hundreds of plants and animals were named in his honour, including the genus Solandra of the nightshade family (Solanaceae), the black beech (Fuscospora solandri), a tree in New Zealand, a seabird, the Providence petrel (Pterodroma solandri), a small colourful fish in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, called spotted toby (Canthigaster solandri), an Australian longhorn beetle, Rhytiphora solandri, and a species of sea snail, Gemmulimitra solanderi.

 

 

 

 

 

He studied at the University of Wittenberg, and then travelled to Russia in 1734 as a physician on board a troop ship. He was employed as a surgeon in the Russian army while it was stationed in Danzig (today Gdansk). Later the same year he arrived at St. Petersburg, where he was appointed as a physician to Archbishop Theophan Prokopovich (1681-1736), a powerful figure in the Russian Orthodox Church.

In St. Petersburg, Steller became acquainted with Johann Amman, professor of botany at the Imperial Academy of Sciences, who helped him gain entry into Russian academic circles. At the academy, he also met naturalist Daniel Gottlieb Messerschmidt (1685-1735) who had conducted the first scientific studies in Siberia during an expedition 1719-28. Two years after Messerschmidt’s death, Steller married his widow, acquiring those notes from his travels in Siberia that had not been handed over to the academy.

Steller had heard about the Russian Great Northern Expedition, also known as the Second Kamchatka Expedition, which had left St. Petersburg in February 1733, led by Danish explorer Vitus Jonassen Bering (1681-1741). Steller volunteered to join it and was accepted. In January 1739, he met German naturalist Johann Georg Gmelin (1709-1755) in Yeniseysk. He recommended that Steller take his place in the planned exploration of Kamchatka Peninsula, which Steller accepted. He joined the expedition in Okhotsk in March 1740.

In September, the expedition sailed to Kamchatka, where Steller went ashore on the south-western coast to spend the winter in Bolsheretsk, from where he began exploring the peninsula. It was Bering’s intention to search for America and the strait between the two continents, and when he summoned Steller to join the expedition as scientist and physician, he crossed the peninsula by dog sled to the Avacha Bay, where Bering was based.

The expedition had two vessels, but they got separated in a storm. Bering continued to sail east, expecting to find land soon. Steller, who had been studying sea currents and flotsam, insisted that they should sail northeast. After considerable time lost, they turned northeast and made landfall in Alaska at Kayak Island in July 1741.

Bering only wanted to stay to take fresh water on board, but Steller persuaded him to give him time for exploration on land, but was only granted 10 hours. The other members of the expedition never went ashore due to stubbornness and a “dull fear”. Steller became the first European naturalist to describe plants and animals of Alaska, including a jay, which was later named Steller’s jay (Cyanocitta stelleri). Steller was able to conclude that it was closely related to the East American blue jay (C. cristata), which indicated that Alaska was indeed part of North America.

Many expedition members and the ship’s crew suffered from scurvy (lack of vitamin C), but when Steller wanted to give them leaves and berries, which could subdue the disease, they scorned his proposal. Steller and his assistant were among the very few aboard who did not suffer from scurvy.

On the return journey, only 12 members of the expedition were able to walk, and the rigging was rapidly deteriorating. The ship was wrecked on one of the Commander Islands, which was later named Ostrov Beringa (‘Bering Island’). Almost half of crew and expedition members had already died from scurvy, and now Steller nursed the survivors, including Bering who, however, got weaker and died. The remaining men survived the winter by hunting sea otters, sea lions, fur seals, and sea cows.

During the stay on the island, Steller explored its flora, fauna, and topography. Later, he described its fauna in De Bestiis Marinis (‘On the Beasts of the Sea’), including a huge sea cow, which was later named Steller’s sea cow (Hydrodamalis gigas). He made detailed studies of its behavior and anatomy. This enormous animal once ranged across the northern Pacific, but the only surviving population ever known was confined to the Commander Islands. It was hunted to extinction only about 27 years later.

He also described the sea otter (Enhydra lutris), Steller’s sea lion (Eumetopias jubatus), the northern fur seal (Callorhinus ursinus), Steller’s eider (Polysticta stelleri), and the spectacled cormorant (Urile perspicillatus). The latter went extinct around 1850.

In spring 1742, the crew used material from the wreck to construct a new vessel, and they were able to return to Avacha Bay at Kamchatka, where Steller went exploring for 2 years. He described a huge species of eagle, which was later named Steller’s sea eagle (Haliaeetus pelagicus).

At one point he was arrested, falsely accused of freeing rebels from a prison, and was escorted to Irkutsk for a hearing. However, he was soon set free and decided to return to St. Petersburg, but along the way he had a severe attack of fever and died at Tyumen.

Some of his journals reached the academy in St. Petersburg and were later published by Peter Simon Pallas (see above).

 

 

 

 

 

William’s education was curtailed because of a serious speech impediment, and he also had a weak health and a nervous temperament, which was perhaps his reason for joining the Liverpool Customs as a junior clerk at the age of 14 – a career that did not require much public speaking.

William had an interest in natural history, and while he was in the Army Commissariat, he studied fishes around Malta and Sicily. However, ill health forced him to return to England, where he subsequently retired on half-pay.

In 1816, he got acquainted with English explorer and author Henry Koster (c. 1793-1820), who had been living in Brazil for some years and was famous for his book Travels in Brazil (1816). Koster planned a new journey to Brazil, and Swainson joined him to collect animals and plants. He stayed there for 2 years, returning to England in 1818 like (in his own words) “a bee loaded with honey,” indicating his collection of over 20,000 insects, 1,200 species of plants, drawings of 120 species of fish, and about 760 bird skins. His exploration in Brazil was particularly focused on ornithology, and his work culminated in the publication of the renowned book The Birds of Brazil (1834-35).

Swainson’s first wife Mary Parkes died in 1835, and in 1840 he married Ann Grasby. The following year, the couple emigrated to New Zealand, where Swainson purchased 1,100 acres (445 hectares) in the Hutt Valley and established an estate there. Shortly after, his estate was claimed by Taringakuri, a Maori chief, which was maybe the reason that he became an officer in a militia against the Maoris in 1846.

In 1851, Swainson was appointed botanical surveyor with the Victoria Government and sailed to Sydney. He finished his report in 1853, in which he claimed to have identified 1,520 species and varieties of eucalyptus trees. Later, English botanist Joseph Maiden (1859-1925) described Swainson’s efforts as “an exhibition of reckless species-making that, as far as I know stands unparalleled in the annals of botanical literature.”

The renowned English botanist William Jackson Hooker (see above) wrote about him: “In my life I think I never read such a series of trash and nonsense. There is a man who left this country with the character of a first rate naturalist (though with many eccentricities), and of a very first-rate natural history artist, and he goes to Australia and takes up the subject of botany, of which he is as ignorant as a goose.” – Sic!

While his botanical career was quite disastrous, he was regarded by many as a capacity within zoology, especially ornithology, and he published a large number of zoological works. He was also a brilliant artist, who produced numerous paintings, for instance for his book Zoological Illustrations (1820-23).

Several birds were named in his honour, including Swainson’s hawk (Buteo swainsoni), Swainson’s spurfowl (Pternistis swainsonii), and Swainson’s sparrow (Passer swainsonii).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coenraad was educated privately, but never got a scientific degree. In 1794, he was named as auctioneer of Amsterdam for the Dutch East India Company, a position he held until 1812. During this period he was able to devote much time to his great interest, ornithology. From his father, he had inherited a large collection of bird specimens.

He acquired great skill in the taxidermy of birds, developing a groundbreaking method, still referred to as Temminck’s method. In 1815, he published Manuel d’ornithologie, ou Tableau systématique des oiseaux qui se trouvent en Europe (‘Manual of Ornithology, or Systematic Table of the Birds Found in Europe’), which was the standard work on European birds for many years. He also wrote Histoire naturelle générale des Pigeons et des Gallinacées (‘General Natural History of Pigeons and Gallinaceans’), published between 1813 and 1817.

In 1815, Temminck was named Deputy Director of Kabinet van Natuurlijke Historie (‘Cabinet of Natural History’) in Leiden. On his initiative, this cabinet was combined with his own collection and several smaller collections, and the name was changed to Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie (‘National Museum of Natural History’). It opened in 1820, and Temminck became its first director, a position he held until his death. In his lifetime, he described more than 350 bird species, new to science.

He was honoured by his friend, German physician and naturalist Johann Philipp Leisler (1772-1813), who named a small wader Tringa temminckii (today called Calidris temminckii) after him in 1812. Pictures, depicting this bird, are shown on the page Animals – Birds: Calidris sandpipers.

 

 

 

 

 

Henry studied at Harvard College 1833-37, taking courses in classics, philosophy, mathematics, and science. In 1835, he took a leave of absence from Harvard, teaching at a school in Canton, Massachusetts. He graduated in 1837 and returned to Concord, where he met author Ralph Waldo Emerson (1802-1882), and they became friends.

Thoreau joined the Concord public school, but resigned, as he refused to use corporal punishment. In 1838, he and his brother John opened a grammar school in Concord, introducing progressive concepts like nature walks and visits to local shops and businesses. The school closed in 1842, when John died of tetanus.

In 1841, Thoreau moved in with the Emersons as a tutor of their children, and also working as editorial assistant, repairman, and gardener. For a few months in 1843, he tutored the sons of Ralph’s older brother William, a lawyer who lived in New York City. He then returned to Concord and worked in the family’s pencil factory, which he would do on and off for the rest of his life.

In July 1845, Thoreau moved to a cabin he had built on land owned by Emerson in the forest around Walden Pond, 3 km from Concord. In his book Walden (1854), he writes, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach.”

This highly praised book contains numerous observations on nature and wildlife, and Thoreau’s reflections on the ways of humans. However, not everybody praises him. In his book A Walk in the Woods (1998), American author Bill Bryson (born 1951) writes, “The inestimably priggish and tiresome Thoreau thought that nature was splendid, splendid indeed, as long as he could stroll to town for cakes and barley wine, but when he experienced real wilderness, on a visit to Katahdin [a mountain in Maine] in 1846, he was unnerved to the core. This wasn’t the tame world of overgrown orchards and sun-dappled paths that passed for wilderness in suburban Concord, Massachusetts, but a forbidding, oppressive, primeval country that was “grim and wild … savage and dreary”, fit only for “men nearer of kin to the rocks and wild animals as we.”

I guess that the term “as we” indicates ‘civilized’ people like Thoreau himself.

Thoreau travelled extensively, making 3 trips to Maine, where he was canoeing and climbing mountains. His adventures here were related in the book The Maine Woods (1864). In 1849, he undertook a long hike in Cape Cod, described in the book Cape Cod (1865). His longest trip was in 1861, when he travelled by railroad and steamboat to Minneapolis and St. Paul. His experiences here were never published due to his death a year later.

He also made numerous shorter trips in New England, one of which is described in the book A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849).

Several quotes from his books are found on the page Quotes on Nature.

 

 

 

 

 

In 1770, he was encouraged by Linnaeus to travel to Paris and Amsterdam to broaden his knowledge. In Leiden, he met Dutch botanist and physician Johannes Burman, who suggested him to travel to the East Indies to collect plant and animal specimens for the botanical garden at Leiden. The following year he went as a surgeon on board the Dutch East India Company ship Schoonzicht, reaching Cape Town in South Africa in March 1772.

Thunberg stayed 3 years in South Africa, collecting plants and animals, and studying the culture of the native people the Khoikhoi, known as Hottentots in Dutch. He was both fascinated and disgusted by their customs. He regarded their habit of greasing their skin with fat and dust as obnoxious, writing: “For uncleanliness, the Hottentots have the greatest love. They grease their entire body with greasy substances, and above this they put cow dung, fat or something similar.”

However, he had to admit that this practice had its advantages: “This stops up their pores, and their skin is covered with a thick layer, which protects it from heat in summer and from cold during winter.”

Thunberg left South Africa in March 1775, arriving in Batavia (today Jakarta) in the Dutch Ostindies in May. He continued to Japan, where he arrived in August at the Dutch trading post on the small island Dejima, near Nagasaki. The Japanese authorities did not allow foreigners to leave the island – a result of the persistance of Portuguese missionaries who had tried to convert the Japanese to Christianity.

Shortly after his arrival, Thunberg was appointed head surgeon of the trading post. Through a network of interpreters, he was able to collect specimens of plants and animals, as well as gathering information on the culture. He sent them notes containing medical knowledge, and the news quickly spread that a well-educated Dutch physician on the island was seemingly able to help the local doctors cure syphilis, known in Japan as the ‘Dutch disease’. As a result, he was granted permission to visit the city, and finally he could even make one-day trips into the vicinity, giving him the chance to collect specimens himself.

In November 1776, Thunberg left for Java and continued to Ceylon (today Sri Lanka), where he collected plants and animals. In 1779, he returned to Amsterdam, stopping on the way for 2 weeks in the Cape Province. Back in Sweden, he was appointed professor of medicine and natural history at the University of Uppsala in 1781.

His publications include Flora Japonica (1784), Travels in Europe, Africa and Asia, performed between the Years 1770 and 1779 (1795), Prodromus Plantarum (1800), Icones Plantarum Japonicarum (1805), and Flora Capensis (1813). Fauna Japonica was published after his death by German explorer Philipp Franz von Siebold in 1833, based on Thunberg’s notes.

Many plants and a few animals were named in his honour, including the genus Thunbergia (the vine black-eyed Susan (T. alata) is illustrated on the page In praise of the colour yellow), and also a species of onion, Allium thunbergii, a species of fritillary, Fritillaria thunbergii, a species of geranium, Geranium thunbergii, and Japanese black pine (Pinus thunbergii). Animals named after him include a genus of weevils, Thunbergapion, a subspecies of the yellow wagtail, Motacilla flava ssp. thunbergi, and a subspecies of a swallowtail butterfly, Papilio memnon ssp. thunbergi.

 

 

 

 

 

During the period 1769-74, he studied at Uppsala University under the famous Carl Linnaeus (see above), his main interests being botany and entomology. In 1774 he travelled to Copenhagen, where his father wanted him to study medicine, but he preferred botany.

His arrival here coincided with the botanical garden being transferred from Amalienborg Castle to Charlottenborg Castle, and Vahl was of great assistance during the transfer. In 1779, he was appointed lecturer at the garden, his job being to assist the botanical professors, give a number of botanical lectures, and lead excursions. However, he also contributed significantly to the identification of plants.

When a number of humiliating restrictions on his work were introduced, he retired from the job in 1783, but was the same year urged to travel abroad to collect plants. The trip lasted 3 years, going to Spain, France, and Tunisia, with a short visit to Sardinia.

A monumental botanical work, Flora Danica, had been initiated in 1761 by Georg Oeder (1728-1791), professor at the botanical garden in Copenhagen, who edited the first 3 volumes. His work was taken over in 1775 by naturalist Otto Friedrich Müller (1730-1784), who published a further 2 volumes. Following his death, Vahl became editor after many tough negotiations. Now receiving a salary of 500 Rigsdaler a year, and with support from his father, he was finally secured economically. He was also appointed as professor.

In 1787, Vahl travelled to Norway in search of plants to be illustrated in Flora Danica. (Norway was then a Danish territory.) From Copenhagen, he went by ship to Christiania (Oslo), then north through the Gudbrand Valley and further on to the town of Lom, situated at the foot of the highest peaks of Norway, in Jotunheimen and Dovre.

In 1792, Vahl wrote enthusiastically about a botanical trip near the town: “One of the rarest Norwegian plants, Azalea lapponica, was ample reward for struggling towards the peak of a high mountain, through snow and morass. The pleasure of having seen this plant alive was further increased by the fact that it might easily have escaped my attention, as only two bushes were growing here.” (Source: H. Knudsen 2014. Fortællingen om Flora Danica. Lindhardt & Ringhof, in Danish)

Today, Azalea lapponica is known as Rhododendron lapponicum.

Between 1787 and 1803, he published a further 2 volumes of Flora Danica, which were of much higher quality than the volumes published by Müller. However, he did not published anything else about the Danish flora.

When Flora Danica was finalized in 1883, no less than 122 years after its initiation, the work encompassed 51 volumes with a total of 3,240 colour plates.

Among Vahl’s other works were Symbolæ Botanicæ, published 1790-94 in 3 volumes with 75 colour plates, including description of a number of plants collected by Pehr Forsskål (see above). In 1797-98, a similar work, Eclogæ Americanæ (‘A selection (of) American (plants)’), was published in 4 volumes, with descriptions of a number of plants from the Danish West Indies. Enumeratio Plantarum (‘A list of plants’) was published in 2 volumes 1804-05.

Several plants were named in his honour, including Phanera vahlii, a gigantic woody climber in the pea family (Fabaceae), which is native to northern India and southern Nepal, and others like a heather, Erica vahlii, a spurge, Euphorbia vahlii, and a cherry, Prunus vahlii. Pictures, depicting Phanera vahlii, are shown on the page Plants: Himalayan flora 2.

 

 

 

 

 

He was born in Copenhagen and was baptized Nathan Wulff Wallich. His father Wulff Lazarus Wallich was a Jewish merchant, who originally lived in Altona near Hamburg, but emigrated to Copenhagen in the late 1700s. His mother was Hanne Jacobsen.

Wallich studied at the Royal Academy of Surgeons in Copenhagen, and among the subjects were botany, taught by a number of professors, including Martin Vahl (see above). He graduated from the academy in 1806, and from 1807 he was employed as a surgeon in the Danish settlement Frederiksnagore (today Serampore), near Calcutta (today Kolkata).

However, due to the Danish alliance with Napoleon, many Danish colonies were seized by the British, who were enemies of Napoleon. When the British East India Company took over Frederiksnagore, Wallich was imprisoned, but was released in 1809 due to his great scholarship.

Following an attack of malaria, he spent the years 1811-13 in the more healthy climate of Mauritius, where he continued his studies. From 1814, he became an assistant surgeon in the East India Company.

Wallich was involved in the early development of the Royal Botanical Garden in Calcutta, serving there between 1817 and 1846, when he retired from the service.

Wallich went on numerous expeditions, and also offered his assistance to many plant collectors, who made a stop in Calcutta on their way to the Himalaya. He prepared a catalogue of more than 20,000 plant specimens, and published two books, Tentamen Florae Napalensis Illustratae: Consisting of Botanical Descriptions and Lithographic Figures of Select Nipal Plants (1824-26), and Plantae Asiaticae Rariores (‘Rare Asian Plants’, 1830).

In 1822, his friend Stamford Raffles suggested that he should go to Singapore to design a botanical garden, but he returned to Calcutta the following year.

He stayed in Europe, including London, from 1828 to 1832, to work with botanists on his vast collection of plants, before returning to India. In 1835, he and others were sent to Assam to evaluate the prospects of growing tea there. In 1837-38, he served as professor of botany at the Calcutta Medical College.

In 1847, after his retirement, he travelled to England, living in London, where he became vice-president of the Linnean Society.

Numerous plants have been named in honour of Wallich, including a genus of palms, Wallichia, and species like Allium wallichii (a Himalayan onion), Clerodendrum wallichii (a glorybower), Diospyros wallichii (Indian persimmon), Geranium wallichianum (a Himalayan crane’s-bill), Pinus wallichiana (blue pine), and Rhododendron wallichii. The Himalayan cheer pheasant (Catreus wallichii) was also named after him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The following year he sailed to southern India, appointed as an assistant surgeon by the East India Company, serving with the Madras Native Infantry. He was posted in the present-day state of Andhra Pradesh, where he devoted his leisure time to collecting plants.

In 1826, he obtained the post of Madras Naturalist. However, this post was abolished two years later, and Wight went back to his duties as assistant garrison surgeon, posted at Nagapattinam, south-eastern Madras (today Tamil Nadu). He began a correspondence with botanist William Hooker (see above) at Glasgow University, sending him plant specimens and drawings of plants by Indian artists.

In 1831, Wight took a 3-year leave, going to London with about 100,000 specimens of 3,000-4,000 plant species, weighing 2 tonnes. With the help of his friend, botanist George Walker-Arnott, he began identifying, organizing, and distributing the collection, mainly working from Scotland. They distributed up to 20 sets of duplicates to specialists in Britain, Europe, America, and Russia.

Wight returned to India in 1834, working as a surgeon in the Native Infantry at Bellary (today Ballari) in the state of Karnataka. He began a work on the medicinal plants of India, using native artists to illustrate the plants, and he also wrote brief notes in the Madras Journal of Literature and Science, of which he later became the editor of the botanical section.

In 1836, Wight’s botanical skills led to his transfer to the Madras Revenue Department, where his job was to report on agricultural plants, including tea, sugarcane, senna (cultivated for its laxative properties), and especially cotton. The same year he visited Ceylon (today Sri Lanka) for 6 weeks, and he reported on the resources of montane areas in Tamil Nadu.

In 1841, the large Wight family moved into a house in Ootacamund (Ooty) in the Nilgiri Mountains, where they stayed until 1847. During the period 1842-53 he was working as superintendent of American Cotton Plantations in Coimbatore, with the aim of convincing local farmers that they should grow high-yielding American cotton.

He also became the secretary of the Madras Agri-Horticultural Society, whose garden acted as the botanical garden of the city of Madras (Chennai).

Altogether, Wight described 110 plant genera and 1,267 species new to science. Among his publications are Icones Plantarum Indiae Orientalis (‘Illustrations of Indian Plants’) in 6 volumes (1838-53), Illustrations of Indian Botany: or Figures Illustrative of Each of the Natural Orders of Indian Plants, described in the Author’s Prodromus Florae Peninsulae Indiae Orientalis in 2 volumes (1838-50), and Spicilegium Neilgherrense (‘A Selection of Plants of the Nilgiris’) in 2 volumes (1845-51).

Wight retired in 1853 and returned to England, where he bought an estate near Reading. His health was poor, and all that he published was a pamphlet on cotton cultivation in 1862. He donated his vast collection of plants to the Kew Herbarium, including 3,108 species of higher plants and 94 species of ferns.

Numerous plants were named to honour him, including the genus Wightia in the family Paulowniaceae, 2 species of tropical trees, found from eastern Nepal, north-eastern India, and south-western China southwards to Indonesia. Species include Arisaema wightii (a cobra lily), Cinnamomum wightii (a species of cinnamon), Strobilanthes wightiana, of the family Acanthaceae, and an orchid, Vanda wightii, the latter two endemic to the Western Ghats of southern India.