British farmer, tradesman and botanist from Mansfield, Nottinghamshire. He left school to become a sailor and during this period his father emigrated to Durban (1847), where he established an accountancy business and was later made a deputy sheriff. John Medley Wood joined his father in South Africa (1852) and bought a farm (Otterspool) where he tried various crops. He later moved away from the coast to Inanda (1868) where he bought another farm and opened a trading store. He met the Scottish horticulturalist M.J. McKen, who married Margaret Wood, his younger sister. An interest in plants began and John Medley Wood became a self-trained botanist. He was later appointed curator of the Durban Botanic Gardens (1882-1913), where he founded (1882) and became the first director of the Natal Herbarium (NH). In 1913, at the age of 86, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Cape Town. The genus Woodia Schltr. in the Asclepiadaceae was named in his honour. Also associated is Encephalartos woodii Sander or Wood's Cycad, originally collected by his assistant James Wylie and now extinct in the wild, known only from male plants and their offsets. The Medwood Garden in Durban is named after him.