John Medley Wood (1 December 1827

Mansfield Mansfield is a market town and the administrative centre of Mansfield District in Nottinghamshire, England. It is the largest town in the wider Mansfield Urban Area (followed by Sutton-in-Ashfield). It gained the Royal Charter of a market tow ...

, Nottinghamshire, England – 26 August 1915

Durban Durban ( ) ( zu, eThekwini, from meaning 'the port' also called zu, eZibubulungwini for the mountain range that terminates in the area), nicknamed ''Durbs'',Ishani ChettyCity nicknames in SA and across the worldArticle on ''news24.com'' from ...

) was a South African botanist who contributed greatly to the knowledge of

Natal NATAL or Natal may refer to: Places * Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, a city in Brazil * Natal, South Africa (disambiguation), a region in South Africa ** Natalia Republic, a former country (1839–1843) ** Colony of Natal, a former British colony ( ...

ferns, is generally credited with the establishment of

sugarcane mosaic virus ''Sugarcane mosaic virus'' (SCMV) is a plant pathogenic virus of the family ''Potyviridae''. The virus was first noticed in Puerto Rico in 1916 and spread rapidly throughout the southern United States in the early 1920s. SCMV is of great concern ...

immune Uba

sugar cane 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 t ...

in Natal and for his extensive collection of Natal plants.

History

Wood was born in

to a lawyer James Riddall Wood and Hannah Healy Weaver. His father remarried Mary Haygarth and emigrated to

, and John, who had spent seven years at sea after leaving school, joined him there in 1852. He soon acquired his own property at the mouth of the Umdhloti River north of Durban. Here he experimented with new crop plants. In 1855 he married his stepmother's younger sister Elizabeth Haygarth. For health reasons he moved further inland to Inanda in 1868, where he ran a trading store and did some farming. Here he developed an interest in

cryptogams A cryptogam (scientific name Cryptogamae) is a plant (in the wide sense of the word) or a plant-like organism that reproduces by spores, without flowers or seeds. The name ''Cryptogamae'' () means "hidden reproduction", referring to the fact ...

and started collecting ferns, mosses and fungi as well as flowering plants. He began corresponding with M.C. Cooke and Károly Kalchbrenner, the

mycologists Mycology is the branch of biology concerned with the study of fungi, including their genetic and biochemical properties, their taxonomy and their use to humans, including as a source for tinder, traditional medicine, food, and entheogens, as w ...

Kew Kew () is a district in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. Its population at the 2011 census was 11,436. Kew is the location of the Royal Botanic Gardens ("Kew Gardens"), now a World Heritage Site, which includes Kew Palace. Kew is a ...

and in Budapest, Hungary. The Rev. John Buchanan, a local fern expert who had published a list of Natal ferns in 1875, assisted Medley Wood in that group. In 1880

Anton Rehmann Antoni Rehman aka Anton Rehman (13 May 1840 Kraków – 13 January 1917 Lwow, Galicia) was a Polish geographer, geomorphologist, botanist and explorer. He published mostly in German journals in Austria and is regarded as an Austrian botanist, as ...

, the Austrian botanist, visited Natal and took over Wood's collection of mosses. As a result of his growing interest in botany, he accepted the post of curator of the

Durban Botanic Gardens The Durban Botanic Gardens is situated in the city of Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It is Durban's oldest public institution and Africa's oldest surviving botanical gardens. The gardens cover an area of in a subtropical climate. Histo ...

in 1882. From his interest in crop plants, he established the suitability of Uba sugar cane ''(

Saccharum sinense ''Saccharum sinense'' or ''Saccharum'' × ''sinense'', synonym ''Saccharum'' × ''barberi'', sugarcane, is strong-growing species of grass (Poaceae) in the genus ''Saccharum''. It is originally cultivated in Guangzhou, China where it is still c ...

L.)'', for conditions in Natal. During these years he collected plants extensively throughout Natal and exchanged duplicates with foreign herbaria. He was preparing the seventh volume of his ''Natal Plants'' at the time of his death in 1915. He is commemorated in the genera ''Woodia'' Schltr., ''Woodiella'' Sydow and a large number of species names including that of '' Encephalartos woodii'' Sander, which he first discovered. He was elected an Associate of the

Linnean Society of London 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 ...

in 1887 and awarded an honorary D.Sc. from University of Cape Town in 1913.

Publications

* * ''The Classification of Ferns''. 1879 * ''An Analytical Key to the Natural Orders and Genera of Natal Indigenous Plants''. 1888 * ''Preliminary Catalogue of Indigenous Natal Plants''. 1894 * in six volumes, (Volume 1 with M.S. Evans) (illustrated by Miss F.Lauth and Miss M.Franks) * ''Handbook to the Flora of Natal''. 1907

References

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Wood, John Medley 19th-century South African botanists Pteridologists South African mycologists 1915 deaths 1827 births