John Davidson (1878 – 1970) was a notable Scottish-

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

botanist.

Biography

He was born in Aberdeen, Scotland. He worked at the

University of Aberdeen , mottoeng = The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom , established = , type = Public research universityAncient university , endowment = £58.4 million (2021) , budget ...

from 1893 to 1911. He later moved to

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

in the hopes of securing a professorship at the soon to be established

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks among the top thre ...

(UBC). Instead, he was appointed the first Provincial Botanist of

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

. Davidson established a herbarium on West Pender Street,

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

, and a botanical garden near New Westminster, at Coquitlam (at th
Colony Farm
an
Essondale
farming and mental hospital complex, which later became Riverview Hospital in the 1950s). This collection was moved to the UBC in 1916 where it became the

UBC Botanical Garden UBC Botanical Garden, at the University of British Columbia, was established in 1916 under the directorship of John Davidson, British Columbia's first provincial botanist. It is the oldest botanical garden at a university in Canada. The garden me ...

. This move is often described as having involved the transfer of 25,000 plants, though this figure is an exaggeration. Even if Davidson and his staff transferred two thousand plants, the feat would still have been extraordinary. As a UBC faculty member in Botany from 1916 to 1948 Davidson was instrumental in developing botany teaching at the University. He also founded th
Vancouver Natural History Society
(which has been renamed Nature Vancouver)

Bibliography

;Published works (partial list) * 1922: "The Cascara Tree in British Columbia" * 1923: "Commercial Drug Plant Cultivation in British Columbia" * 1933: "Poisonous Plants of British Columbia" * 1942: "The Cascara Tree in British Columbia" * 1943: "Edible Plants of British Columbia" * 1949: "The Cascara Tree in Relation to Drug Farming in British Columbia"

External links

David Brownstein's 2006 PhD thesis, one chapter of which is on John Davidson (ch 5 John Davidson, the Moses of BC Botany).

* ttp://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/u_arch/davidson.html University of British Columbia Library Archive- a list of archival material.

A blog about "Botany John", with links to UBC's John Davidson website.

UBC's Virtual Museum of Canada exhibition, Botany John: Legacy of a Canadian Botanist.
John Davidson
{{DEFAULTSORT:Davidson, John 1878 births 1970 deaths Scottish botanists 20th-century Canadian botanists

Biography

Bibliography

See also

External links