English plant collector for the horticultural firm of James Veitch & Sons, collecting plants, seeds and botanical specimens in South and North America. William Lobb was born in the village of Perranarworthal in Cornwall, the son of a carpenter turned gamekeeper at Pencarrow estate who died when William was still a boy. Before entering the service of James Veitch, Lobb worked as a gardener at Scorrier House in Redruth. In 1840 Veitch sent him to South America in search of plants for English greenhouses and gardens. During nearly four years of exploration in Brazil, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia, he collected plants of great value to horticulture, particularly from such genera as Bomarea, Dipladenia, Fuchsia, Passiflora and Tropaeolum. He also sent back a large quantity of seed of Araucaria imbricata Pav., the monkey puzzle tree.
He returned for a short time to England in 1844 to receive new instructions from his employers and visit his family, and then set out immediately for another four years of exploration in Brazil, and Chile. On this trip he collected, among other plants, numerous decorative trees and plants that could be cultivated in the English climate, including Fitzroya patagonica Hook.f. ex Lindl., Podocarpus nubigena Lindl., Libocedrus tetragona Endl., and Lapageria rosea Ruiz & Pav.
Lobb was collecting in California in 1849 and in 1852 was the first European to collect seeds of the Sierra redwood or big tree. Lobb's plants were used by John Lindley (1799-1865) to name the tree Wellingtonea gigantea Lindl. in honour of the Duke of Wellington, who had died the previous year, but the name was later changed to Sequoiadendron giganteum (Lindl.) J. Buchholz.
In 1857 Lobb terminated his contract with Veitch but remained headquartered in San Francisco and evidently sent some material to Mssrs Low & Co. of Clapton Nursery. He died in 1864 of an unnamed illness that caused paralysis of the limbs. In the late 1920s, the California Botanical Club moved his remains from a public plot at Laurel Hill Cemetery to a private grave to South Ridge Lawn. His younger brother, Thomas, was also a Veitch collector, but confined his activities to India and Southeast Asia; a plaque at Devoran Parish Church in Truro commemorates them both. Several species native to California, such as the poppy Eschsholzia lobbii Greene, and many more from South America including Bomarea lobbiana Kraenzl. from Peru, Passiflora lobbii Mast. from Colombia and Salvia lobbii Epling from Ecuador, are named after William Lobb. Virtually all written records of Lobb's activities were destroyed by his employers when the company went out of business in 1914. Specimens often bear just the surname 'Lobb' and the collector must be distinguished by geography.
Sources:
W. Dallimore, 1932, "William Lobb and John Jeffrey", Forestry, 6: 5-8
J. Ewan, 1973, "William Lobb, Plant Hunter for Veitch and Messenger of the Big Tree", University of California Publications in Botany, 67: 1-27
J.G. Hawkes, 1992, "William Lobb in Ecuador and the Enigma of Solanum lobbianum", Taxon, 41(3): 471-475
E. Killip, 1932, "The Botanical Collections of William Lobb in Colombia", Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, 87(1): 1-13
G.H. True, 1980, "Who was Lobb?", Fremontia, 8(2): 8-11.
