George Samuel Jenman (1845-1902) was a British gardener and

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 w ...

. He specialized in growing and studying

plants Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae exclude ...

. He was superintendent of

Castleton Botanical Garden Castleton Botanical Garden is a horticultural site of interest established in 1862 and located 19 miles from Kingston, Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest isla ...

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of Hispanio ...

from 1873 to 1879, and Government Botanist and superintendent of the

Botanical Gardens A botanical garden or botanic gardenThe terms ''botanic'' and ''botanical'' and ''garden'' or ''gardens'' are used more-or-less interchangeably, although the word ''botanic'' is generally reserved for the earlier, more traditional gardens, an ...

British Guiana British Guiana was a British colony, part of the mainland British West Indies, which resides on the northern coast of South America. Since 1966 it has been known as the independent nation of Guyana. The first European to encounter Guiana was ...

(now

Guyana Guyana ( or ), officially the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the northern mainland of South America. Guyana is an indigenous word which means "Land of Many Waters". The capital city is Georgetown. Guyana is bordered by the ...

) from 1879 to 1902. Jenman was also a member of the

Linnean Society The Linnean Society of London is a learned society dedicated to the study and dissemination of information concerning natural history, evolution, and taxonomy. It possesses several important biological specimen, manuscript and literature colle ...

Life

George Samuel Jenman was born in

Plymouth Plymouth () is a port city and unitary authority in South West England. It is located on the south coast of Devon, approximately south-west of Exeter and south-west of London. It is bordered by Cornwall to the west and south-west. Plymout ...

in 1845. He trained in gardening and botany at

Kew Gardens Kew Gardens is a botanic garden in southwest London that houses the "largest and most diverse botanical and mycological collections in the world". Founded in 1840, from the exotic garden at Kew Park, its living collections include some of the ...

. In 1873, Jenman moved to

where he was appointed as superintendent of Castleton Botanical Gardens. During this time he began his work on

fern A fern (Polypodiopsida or Polypodiophyta ) is a member of a group of vascular plants (plants with xylem and phloem) that reproduce via spores and have neither seeds nor flowers. The polypodiophytes include all living pteridophytes except th ...

s of the

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean S ...

, which was his major contribution to the field of botany. In 1879 Jenman moved to

where he was appointed as Government Botanist and Superintendent of the Botanical Gardens. Castellani House, now the home of

's National Art Gallery, was originally designed and built to be his official residence by the Maltese colonial architect

Cesar Castellani Cesar Castellani (died 2 August 1905) was an architect. He was born in Malta. He was attracted by the prosperity of British Guiana and emigrated there in 1860 with a group of Italian priests. Designs Castellani designed a number of prominent buil ...

. Much of his work in British Guiana was focused on the

Sugarcane Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of (often hybrid) tall, perennial grass (in the genus '' Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with stout, jointed, fibrous stalks ...

industry. In 1881 he published the ''Handlist of Jamaican Ferns'' and in 1881 he began a series entitled ''The Ferns and Fern Allies of the British West Indies and Guiana'' (1898-1909) which was published by the ''Bulletin of the Royal Botanic Gardens'' 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 southernmo ...

. Jenman died before he was able to complete the series, but his work was continued - and the series completed - by his successor, Henry C. Hart. The Curator's clock, and a dedicatory plaque, were installed at the Curator's Lodge in the Botanical Gardens of Guyana in memory of Jenman. In 1897, botanist Wilhelm Wächter published '' Jenmania'', which is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nomencla ...

fungi A fungus ( : fungi or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, separately from t ...

within the family

Lichinaceae The Lichinaceae are a family of ascomycete fungi. Most species are lichenized with cyanobacteria, and have a distribution largely in temperate regions. Taxonomy The family was circumscribed in 1854 by Finnish lichenologist William Nylander. ...

and named in George's honour.

Publications

* ''A Handlist of Jamaican Ferns and their Allies''. Baldwin and Company: Demerara, 1881 * ''The Ferns and Fern Allies of the British West Indies and Guiana''. U. S. Government Printing Office, 1909.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jenman, George Samuel 1845 births 1902 deaths English botanists