Ernest Entwistle Cheesman (21 September 1898

Wood Green Wood Green is a suburban district in the borough of Haringey in London, England. Its postal district is N22, with parts in N8 or N15. The London Plan identifies it as one of the metropolitan centres in Greater London, and today it forms a maj ...

- 9 January 1983

Weybridge Weybridge () is a town in the Borough of Elmbridge in Surrey, England, around southwest of central London. The settlement is recorded as ''Waigebrugge'' and ''Weibrugge'' in the 7th century and the name derives from a crossing point of the ...

), was an English botanist noted for his work on the family Musaceae. He was the son of Charles Cheesman and Grace Lizzie Davies. About August 1936 he married Ellen Elizabeth B. Weston (1892-1966). Cheesman collected in

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...

and

Tobago Tobago () is an List of islands of Trinidad and Tobago, island and Regions and municipalities of Trinidad and Tobago, ward within the Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. It is located northeast of the larger island of Trini ...

in 1925-1937, working as professor of botany at the Trinidad ''Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture'' and publishing ''Flora of Trinidad and Tobago'' with R. O. Williams in 1929. He became interested in the cultivation of

cocoa Cocoa may refer to: Chocolate * Chocolate * ''Theobroma cacao'', the cocoa tree * Cocoa bean, seed of ''Theobroma cacao'' * Chocolate liquor, or cocoa liquor, pure, liquid chocolate extracted from the cocoa bean, including both cocoa butter and ...

while in Trinidad and wrote a number of papers on the subject - *Cheesman E.E. 1935. ''The vegetative propagation of cocoa.'' Tropical Agriculture 12(9): 240-246. *Cheesman E.E. 1936. ''The vegetative propagation of cocoa. VII.- Root systems of cuttings.'' Page 7, plates 3 & 4 in Fifth Annual Report on Cocoa Research 1935, Trinidad. *Cheesman E.E. 1941. ''General notes on field experiments CRB1 to CRB6.'' Pages 4–11 in Tenth Annual Report on Cocoa Research 1940. Trinidad. Returning to England he worked on the taxonomy of Musaceae at the

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. An internationally important botanical research and education institution, it employs 1,100 ...

during the 1940s. As a result of his studies he revived the genus ''

Ensete ''Ensete'' is a genus of monocarpic flowering plants native to tropical regions of Africa and Asia. It is one of the three genera in the banana family, Musaceae, and includes the false banana or enset ('' E. ventricosum''), an economically impor ...

'' in 1947 (Kew Bull. 1947, 97), first published in 1862 by Paul Fedorowitsch Horaninow (1796-1865), but then not accepted. Cheesman made it clear that there are no wild ''

Musa Musa may refer to: Places * Mūša, a river in Lithuania and Latvia * Musa, Azerbaijan, a village in Yardymli Rayon * Musa, Iran, a village in Ilam Province * Musa, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, Iran *Musa, Kerman, Iran * Musa, Bukan, West Azerbaija ...

'' native to Africa, only ''Ensete'', and that ''Ensete'' is

monocarpic Monocarpic plants are those that flower and set seeds only once, and then die. The term is derived from Greek (''mono'', "single" + ''karpos'', "fruit" or "grain"), and was first used by Alphonse de Candolle. Other terms with the same meaning are ...

, has large seeds and 9 haploid chromosomes. Cheesman noted in 1948 of bananas ''"Some botanists have regarded the seedless forms as ranking with the fertile species and have bestowed Latin binomials upon them. Others have preferred to regard them as varieties of one mythical "species" (usually called "Musa sapientum") which is supposed to exist somewhere in the wild and fertile condition … Such mistakes... are not peculiar to the genus "Musa", but they are unusually conspicuous in this group"''. ''Giving a seed-bearing wild species the status of subspecies to a seedless cultivar is a good example of the stultifying effect formal nomenclature has had on crop taxonomy.'' ''Musa cheesmanii'' N.W.Simmonds is a tribute to his work on the Musaceae. Simmonds was a 1950s research worker on Musaceae at the ''Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture'' in Trinidad, Cheesman's 1930s place of work.''Isolation in Musa''
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Some Publications

* Cheesman, E.E. 1931 ''Banana breeding at the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture - A progress report.'' H.M. Stationery Office in London . * Cheesman, E.E. 1932 ''Genetic and cytological studies of Musa.'' I. Certain hybrids of the Gros Michel banana ''Journal of Genetics'' 26: 291-312 * Cheesman, E.E. 1947 ''Classification of the bananas.'' II. The genus ''Musa'' L. ''Kew Bulletin'' 2: 106-117 * Cheesman, E.E. 1948a ''Classification of the bananas.'' III. Critical notes on species a. ''Musa balbisiana'' Colla. ''Kew Bulletin'' 3: 11-17 * Cheesman, E.E. 1948b ''Classification of the bananas.'' III. Critical notes on species b. ''Musa acuminata'' Colla. ''Kew Bulletin'' 3: 17-28

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cheesman, Ernest Entwistle 1898 births 1983 deaths People from Wood Green English botanists Botanists active in the Caribbean Botanists active in Kew Gardens