David Don (21 December 1799 – 15 December 1841) was a
Scottish
Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including:
*Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland
*Scottish English
*Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...
botanist
Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek wo ...
.
Biography
David Don was born on 21 December 1799 at Doo Hillock,
Forfar,
Angus, Scotland
Angus ( sco, Angus; gd, Aonghas) is one of the 32 local government council areas of Scotland, a registration county and a lieutenancy area. The council area borders Aberdeenshire, Dundee City and Perth and Kinross. Main industries include agr ...
to Caroline Clementina Stuart, and her husband George Don of
Forfar. His older brother was
George Don, also a botanist. His father was a curator at the Royal Botanic Garden,
Leith Walk,
Edinburgh. Don was
Professor of Botany at
King's College London
King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of King George IV and the Duke of Wellington. In 1836, King's ...
from 1836 to 1841, and
librarian at the
Linnean Society of London from 1822 to 1841.
He described several of the major
conifers
Conifers are a group of cone-bearing seed plants, a subset of gymnosperms. Scientifically, they make up the division Pinophyta (), also known as Coniferophyta () or Coniferae. The division contains a single extant class, Pinopsida. All extan ...
discovered in the period, including first descriptions of
coast redwood (''Taxodium sempervirens'' D. Don; now ''Sequoia sempervirens'' (D. Don)
Endl.
Stephan Ladislaus Endlicher also known as Endlicher István László (24 June 1804, Pressburg, Bratislava (Pozsony) – 28 March 1849, Vienna) was an Austrian Empire, Austrian botanist, numismatist and Sinologist. He was a director of the Botan ...
),
Bristlecone Fir
''Abies bracteata'', the Santa Lucia fir or bristlecone fir, is the rarest and most endemic fir in North America, and according to some, the world. It is confined to steep-sided slopes and the bottoms of rocky canyons in the Santa Lucia Mountains ...
(''Pinus bracteata'' D. Don, now ''Abies bracteata'' (D. Don) A. Poit.),
Grand Fir (''Pinus grandis'' Douglas ex D. Don; now ''Abies grandis'' (Douglas ex D. Don)
Lindl.) and
Coulter Pine (''Pinus coulteri'' D. Don), and was the first to treat
Sugi (''Cupressus japonica''
Thunb.; now ''Cryptomeria japonica'' (
Thunb.) D. Don) in a new
genus.
He also named the
orchid genus
Pleione in 1825.
Don was librarian to the botanist
Aylmer Bourke Lambert
Aylmer Bourke Lambert (2 February 1761 – 10 January 1842) was a British botanist, one of the first fellows of the Linnean Society.
Early life
Aylmer Bourke Lambert was born at Bath, England on 2 February 1761, the son of Edmund Lambert ...
and compiled for him, ''Prodromus florae nepalensis'' ... London, J. Gale, 1825, based on collections made by the botanists
Francis Hamilton and
Nathaniel Wallich
Nathaniel Wolff Wallich FRS FRSE (28 January 1786 – 28 April 1854) was a surgeon and botanist of Danish origin who worked in India, initially in the Danish settlement near Calcutta and later for the Danish East India Company and the British ...
of the
Calcutta Botanic Garden.
On 15 April 1837 in
Soho he married Mary Evans (1788/9–1864). He died on 8 December 1841 from cancer, and is buried at
Kensal Green
Kensal Green is an area in north-west London. It lies mainly in the London Borough of Brent, with a small part to the south within Kensington and Chelsea. Kensal Green is located on the Harrow Road, about miles from Charing Cross.
To the w ...
.
In 1938, the
London County Council marked Don at 32
Soho Square with a rectangular stone plaque, commemorating him as well as botanists
Joseph Banks
Sir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet, (19 June 1820) was an English naturalist, botanist, and patron of the natural sciences.
Banks made his name on the 1766 natural-history expedition to Newfoundland and Labrador. He took part in Captain James ...
and
Robert Brown and meetings of the
Linnean Society.
List of selected publications
* ''
Theophrastaceae''
See also
*
:Taxa named by David Don
References
Bibliography
*
External links
View digitized titles by David Don in ''Botanicus.org''Obituary of David Don
{{DEFAULTSORT:Don, David
British dendrologists
British pteridologists
1799 births
1841 deaths
Botanists with author abbreviations
Academics of King's College London
19th-century Scottish botanists
People from Forfar