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Charles Robert Darwin 1809-1882

Charles Robert Darwin was born in Shrewsbury in 1809, Darwin’s paternal grandfather was Erasmus Darwin, author of the poem The Botanic Garden.

He attended Edinburgh University to study medicine. His father then sent him to Christ’s College, Cambridge to study theology.

In 1831 he embarked as a naturalist on HMS Beagle’s five-year journey to Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego, Chile, Peru and some Pacific islands. On his return he discovered that some of his scientific papers had been privately published and that he was regarded as a leading scientific thinker.

In 1838 he was appointed as Secretary to the Geological Society. The following year he married his cousin, Emma Wedgwood. He spent the rest of his life developing his theory of evolution for publication, an abstract of which was published in 1859 as On the origin of species… He died in 1882. His lifelong friend Joseph Dalton Hooker had appealed in his 1880 annual report for help in updating Steudel’s listing of plant names Nomenclator Botanicus. Darwin responded with an offer of financial assistance. Work started in February 1882 and when Darwin died a few months later his family took on the expense of publication. Hooker called the new work Index Kewensis, initially a record of the botanical names of seed bearing plants published between 1735 and 1885.

Sir J.D.Hooker (English Botanist) 1817 – 1911

Joseph Dalton Hooker was arguably the most important British botanist of the nineteenth century. A traveller and plant-collector, he was one of Charles Darwin’s closest friends and eventually became director of Britain’s Royal Botanic Gardens Kew.

Hooker was born at Halesworth, Suffolk, on 30 June 1817.
He was a botanist and traveller. He was the youngest son of Sir William Jackson Hooker and his wife Maria, daughter of Dawson Turner.

He was educated at Glasgow High School and later at Glasgow university, where he graduated M.D. in 1839.

Hooker’s passions for botany and travel were combined when he was appointed assistant surgeon aboard HMS Erebus, which commanded by Sir James Clark Ross, and accompanied by its sister ship, the Terror was to spend four years exploring the southern oceans. The ships took shelter from Antarctica’s winters in places such as New Zealand and Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania), and also visited the numerous tiny islands around Antarctica. These included Kerguelen’s Land, where the sojourns ashore allowed him to collect plants in relatively unexplored regions.

When the Erebus returned to England in 1843, Hooker needed to establish his reputation and find paid, botanical employment. Two years earlier, his father had been appointed first director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, which had just been brought under government control. However, while the prestigious appointment brought William Hooker to the centres of scientific life in London, it reduced his income and he was still unable to give his son much financial support. Fortunately William’s influence was sufficient to secure an Admiralty grant of £1000 to cover the cost of the Botany of the Antarctic Voyage’s plates, and Joseph received his Assistant Surgeon’s pay while he worked on it. The book eventually formed six large volumes: two each for the Flora Antarctica, 1844–47; the Flora Novae-Zelandiae, 1851–53; and the Flora Tasmaniae, 1853–59. Nonetheless, Hooker’s Antarctic publications never made any money and much of his time in the 1840s was taken up with searching for paid employment. In 1845, he was a candidate for the chair of botany at the University of Edinburgh. After failing to win the professorship, his father’s contacts helped him secure work at the Geological Survey from 1847–48, but he still had no permanent position.

Shortly after his return from the Antarctic, Hooker received a letter from Darwin congratulating him on his achievements, offering specimens from Tierra del Fuego, and asking whether Hooker would be interested in classifying the plants Darwin had gathered in the Galapagos. At this time, the two men hardly knew each other, having met only once, shortly before Hooker set sail. Nevertheless, Hooker was flattered by his scientific hero’s attention and began the Galapagos work. These first letters marked the beginning of a lifelong correspondence, through which the two became friends and collaborators, and debated their many scientific interests.

In 1865 Hooker’s father died and Joseph succeeded him as director of Kew. Hooker was by this time a highly-regarded botanist with a world-wide reputation, nevertheless he might not have secured the position without his father’s constant assistance. William Hooker had even offered to leave his vast private herbarium to the nation as long as Joseph were appointed to succeed him. Hooker remained director of Kew until his retirement in 1885.
Hooker was highly-regarded in his lifetime and received numerous honorary degrees including ones from Oxford and Cambridge. He was created C.B. in 1869; K.C.S.I. in 1877; G.C.S.I. in 1897; and received the Order of Merit in 1907. The Royal Society gave him their royal medal in 1854, the Copley in 1887, and the Darwin in 1892. He received numerous prizes and awards from both British and foreign scientific societies.

George Bentham (English Botanist) 1800-1884

George Bentham.
Born near Plymouth in 1800, George Bentham spent his childhood in Russia and France. His father was the naval architect Sir Samuel Bentham, and his uncle the political economist Jeremy Bentham.

His early plant collecting in the south of France formed the basis of his herbarium. Although Bentham studied law and qualified as a barrister, inheritances from his father and uncle enabled him to devote his life to botany.

In 1829 he became Secretary to the Horticultural Society ( Royal Horticultural Society) and with help from John Lindley, turned its fortunes around, sponsoring plant hunters and introducing the Society’s Chiswick Horticultural Fetes.

In 1854 Bentham presented his herbarium to Kew Gardens, by which time it numbered more than 100,000 specimens. Bentham spent most of his retirement working at Kew: in addition to his colonial floras, such as the Flora Hongkongensis and Flora Australiensis, he also produced the Handbook of the British Flora (1858), which promoted botany as a pastime for amateurs and became a classic.

In 1883 the Genera Plantarum was completed a 21 year collaboration with Sir Joseph Hooker. This monumental work outlined what became known as the Bentham-Hooker classification system for flowering plant, which was then adopted as the system used in the Herbarium at Kew Gardens.

Carl Linnaeus (Botanist) 1707-1778

Carl Linnaeus
Aka Carl Von Linne or Carolus Linnaeus: Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, who laid the foundations for the modern scheme of binomial nomenclature. He is known as the father of modern taxonomy, and is also considered one of the fathers of modern ecology.

Born May 23 1707, Sweden.

Studied at the University of Lund in 1727, studying medicine, one year later transferred to the University of Uppsala, the most prestigious university in Sweden, where he studied plants more than medicine; however botany was seen as part of the medical curriculum.

In 1931 he mounted a botanical and ethnographic expedition to Lapland and in 1934 another in Sweden.

One year later he finished his medical degree at the University of Harderwijk in the Netherlands, and then enrolls in the University of Leiden for further studies. Whilst there he publishes his first edition of his Classification of living things “Systema Naturae”.

1738 returns to Sweden to practice medicine (the treatment of syphilis) and lectured in Stockholm.

In 1741 he is awarded a professorship at Uppsala. Where he stored the university’s botanical garden arranging the plants to his system of classifications. Also he made three more expeditions to various parts of Sweden, inspiring a generation of students. He was instrumental in arranging for his students to be sent out on trade and exploration voyages to all parts of the world. Perhaps most famous of his students was Daniel Solander who was the naturalist on captain James Cook’s first around the world voyage, and brought back the first plant collection from Australia and the south pacific.

1753 he published “species plantarum” naming for grouping of plants.

1758 he brought manor estate Hammarby, outside Uppsala, where he built a small museum for his extensive personal collection.

He was granted nobility and become Carl Von Linne in 1761.

Starting from 1774 he suffered years of depression and pessimism, resulting in a series of strokes,till 1778 when he dies.

His son also named Carl, succeeded his professorship at Uppsala, but never was note worthy as a botanist, he died five years later with no heir, his mother and sister sold the elder Linnaeus library, manuscripts and natural history collections to the English natural historian Sir James Edward Smith, who founded the Linnaean Society of London to take care of them.

Vegatable gardening jobs for March.

1. Sow in tomatoes and peppers, in temperatures about 21c (70f)

2. Chitted potatoes can be planted then.

3. Plant out vegetables sow under cover which should be done in February and cover with cloches to harden off.