Philip Miller FRS (1691 – 18 December 1771) was an English

botanist Botany, also called plant science, is the branch of natural science and biology studying plants, especially Plant anatomy, their anatomy, Plant taxonomy, taxonomy, and Plant ecology, ecology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who s ...

and gardener of Scottish descent. Miller was chief gardener at the

Chelsea Physic Garden The Chelsea Physic Garden was established as the Apothecaries' Garden in London, England, in 1673 by the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries to grow plants to be used as medicines. This four acre physic garden, the term here referring to the scie ...

for nearly 50 years from 1722, and wrote the highly popular '' The Gardeners Dictionary''.

Life

Born in

Deptford Deptford is an area on the south bank of the River Thames in southeast London, in the Royal Borough of Greenwich and London Borough of Lewisham. It is named after a Ford (crossing), ford of the River Ravensbourne. From the mid 16th century ...

or Greenwich, Miller was chief gardener at the

from 1722 until he was pressured to retire shortly before his death. According to the botanist Peter Collinson, who visited the

physic garden A physic garden is a type of herb garden with medicinal plants. Known since at least 800, they are the predecessors of botanical gardens. History Modern botanical gardens were preceded by medieval physic gardens, often monastic gardens, that ...

in July 1764 and recorded his observation in his

commonplace book Commonplace books (or commonplaces) are a way to compile knowledge, usually by writing information into blank books. They have been kept from antiquity, and were kept particularly during the Renaissance and in the nineteenth century. Such book ...

s, Miller "has raised the reputation of the Chelsea Garden so much that it excels all the gardens of Europe for its amazing variety of plants of all orders and classes and from all climates..." He wrote ''The Gardener's and Florists Dictionary or a Complete System of Horticulture'' (1724) and ''The Gardener's Dictionary containing the Methods of Cultivating and Improving the Kitchen Fruit and Flower Garden'', which first appeared in 1731 in an impressive

folio The term "folio" () has three interconnected but distinct meanings in the world of books and printing: first, it is a term for a common method of arranging Paper size, sheets of paper into book form, folding the sheet only once, and a term for ...

and passed through eight expanding editions in his lifetime and was translated into Dutch by

Job Baster Job Baster, sometimes Hiob Baster, (2 April 1711, in Zierikzee – 6 March 1775) was a Dutch physician and naturalist who devoted himself almost entirely to the study of medicine and natural history. He studied and took his degree of doctor of ...

Botanical work

Miller corresponded with other botanists, and obtained plants from all over the world, many of which he cultivated for the first time in England and is credited as their introducer. His knowledge of living plants, for which he was elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the Fellows of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...

, was unsurpassed in breadth in his lifetime. He trained

William Aiton William Aiton (17312 February 1793) was a Scotland, Scottish botanist. Aiton was born near Hamilton, Scotland, Hamilton. Having been regularly trained to the profession of a gardener, he travelled to London in 1754, and became assistant to Phi ...

, who later became head gardener at

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 ...

, and William Forsyth, after whom ''

Forsythia ''Forsythia'' , is a genus of flowering plants in the olive family Oleaceae. There are about 11 species, mostly native to Eastern Asia, but one native to Southeastern Europe. ''Forsythia'' – also one of the plant's common names – is named ...

'' was named. The

Duke of Bedford Duke of Bedford (named after Bedford, England) is a title that has been created six times (for five distinct people) in the Peerage of England. The first creation came in 1414 for Henry IV's third son, John, who later served as regent of Fran ...

contracted him to supervise the pruning of fruit trees at

Woburn Abbey Woburn Abbey (), occupying the east of the village of Woburn, Bedfordshire, England, is a country house, the family seat of the Duke of Bedford. Although it is still a family home to the current duke, it is open on specified days to visitors, ...

and the care of his prized collection of American trees, especially evergreens, which were grown from seeds that, on Miller's suggestion, had been sent in barrels from

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

, where they had been collected by

John Bartram John Bartram (June 3, 1699 – September 22, 1777) was an American botanist, horticulturist, and explorer, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for most of his career. Swedish botanist and taxonomist Carl Linnaeus said he was the "greatest natu ...

. Through a consortium of sixty subscribers, 1733–66, the contents of Bartram's boxes introduced such American trees as ''

Abies balsamea ''Abies balsamea'' or balsam fir is a North American fir, native to most of eastern and central Canada (Newfoundland (island), Newfoundland west to central Alberta) and the northeastern United States (Minnesota east to Maine, and south in the Ap ...

'' and ''

Pinus rigida ''Pinus rigida'', the pitch pine, is a small-to-medium-sized pine. It is native to eastern North America, primarily from central Maine south to Georgia and as far west as Kentucky. It is found in environments which other species would find unsuit ...

'' into English gardens. Miller was reluctant to use the new

binomial nomenclature In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, both of which use Latin grammatical forms, altho ...

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...

, preferring the classifications of

Joseph Pitton de Tournefort Joseph Pitton de Tournefort (5 June 165628 December 1708) was a French botanist, notable as the first to make a clear definition of the concept of genus for plants. Botanist Charles Plumier was his pupil and accompanied him on his voyages. Li ...

and

John Ray John Ray Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS (November 29, 1627 – January 17, 1705) was a Christian England, English Natural history, naturalist widely regarded as one of the earliest of the English parson-naturalists. Until 1670, he wrote his ...

at first. Linnaeus, nevertheless, applauded Miller's ''Gardeners Dictionary'',''Non erit Lexicon Hortulanorum, sed etiam Botanicorum'', that the book will be, not just a lexicon of gardeners, but of botanists."; noted in Paterson 1986:40–41. The conservative Scot actually retained a number of pre-Linnaean binomial signifiers discarded by Linnaeus but which have been retained by modern botanists. He only fully changed to the Linnaean system in the edition of '' The Gardeners Dictionary'' of 1768, though he had already described some genera, such as '' Larix'' and ''

Vanilla Vanilla is a spice derived from orchids of the genus ''Vanilla (genus), Vanilla'', primarily obtained from pods of the flat-leaved vanilla (''Vanilla planifolia, V. planifolia''). ''Vanilla'' is not Autogamy, autogamous, so pollination ...

'', validly under the Linnaean system earlier, in the fourth edition (1754). Miller sent the first long-strand cotton seeds, which he had developed, to the new British American colony of Georgia in 1733. They were first planted on Sea Island, off the coast of Georgia, and hence derived the name of the finest cotton, Sea Island Cotton. The presumed portrait, engraved by C.J. Maillet and affixed to the posthumous French edition of Miller's ''Gardeners Dictionary'', 1787, shows the wrong Miller,

John Frederick Miller John Frederick Miller (active 1772–1796) was an English illustrator, mainly of botanical subjects. Miller was the son of the artist Johann Sebastian Müller (1715 – c. 1790). Miller, along with his brother James, produced paintings from th ...

, son of the London-based

Nuremberg Nuremberg (, ; ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the Franconia#Towns and cities, largest city in Franconia, the List of cities in Bavaria by population, second-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Bav ...

artist Johann Sebastian Müller. No authentic portrait is known. Miller's two sons worked under him; one, Charles, became the first head of the Cambridge Botanic Garden.

Notes

References

Bibliography

Philip Miller and the Gardeners Dictionary. University of Toronto

External links

* Miller, Philip (1760
''The Gardeners Kalendar''
– digital facsimile from

Linda Hall Library The Linda Hall Library is a privately endowed American library of science, engineering and technology located in Kansas City, Missouri, on the grounds of a urban arboretum. It claims to be the "largest independently funded public library of sc ...

* Miller, Philip (1760
''Figures of the most beautiful, useful, and uncommon plants, 2 vols.''
– digital facsimile from

*Elliott, Brent (2011) Philip Miller as a natural philosopher, i
Eighteenth-century Science in the Garden
- Occasional Papers from RHS Lindley Library, volume 5 March 2011. {{DEFAULTSORT:Miller, Philip English horticulturists Botanists with author abbreviations 1691 births 1771 deaths Fellows of the Royal Society English people of Scottish descent Place of birth missing 18th-century Scottish botanists English garden writers Date of birth missing English gardeners