John George Champion (1815–1854) was an English soldier,
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 ...
, and explorer.
Life
He was gazetted ensign in the
95th regiment in 1831, and embarked for foreign service in 1838, having then attained the rank of captain.
After a stay in the Ionian Isles, his duties took him to Ceylon, and thence in 1847 to Hong Kong. During his time at the Ionian islands of Kerkyra (Corfu) and Kefalonia (Cefalonia), he published short notes on insect natural history under the pseudonym "Ionicus" (or "Jonicus").
He collected a great variety of plants from China, and he came back to England in 1850.
He came back in front of the
Crimea
Crimea, crh, Къырым, Qırım, grc, Κιμμερία / Ταυρική, translit=Kimmería / Taurikḗ ( ) is a peninsula in Ukraine, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, that has been occupied by Russia since 2014. It has a pop ...
combat, commanding the 95th Regiment, and he died in the
Scutari hospital, on 30 November 1854 due to injuries received while he commanded his regiment in the
battle of Inkerman
The Battle of Inkerman was fought during the Crimean War on 5 November 1854 between the allied armies of Britain and France against the Imperial Russian Army. The battle broke the will of the Russian Army to defeat the allies in the field, an ...
.
Honours
Over seventy
species
In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...
have been named in his honour, including:
*(
Acanthaceae
Acanthaceae is a family (the acanthus family) of dicotyledonous flowering plants containing almost 250 genera and about 2500 species. Most are tropical herbs, shrubs, or twining vines; some are epiphytes. Only a few species are distributed in tem ...
) ''
Ecbolium championii''
Kuntze Kuntze is a surname of German origin. People with that name include:
* Carl Kuntze (1922-2006), Dutch rower who competed at the 1952 Summer Olympics
* Edward J. Kuntze (1826-1870), Prussian-born American sculptor
* Otto Kuntze (1843-1907), German ...
*(