British collector of Himalayan plants. Stainton (known as Adam) was born in London to a wealthy family. His father was a barrister and higher civil servant who came from a property-owning family, while his grandfather on his mother's side was Lord Forteviot. Stainton's history degree at Christ Church College, Oxford, was interrupted by World War Two, during which he served in the Scots Guards in North Africa, Italy and northern Europe. He did not return to Oxford until 1946. After graduating two years later he joined his father's profession, though he only practised until 1952, having acquired enough of the family fortune that he did not need to work.
Stainton's father did not see this prosperity as a good thing at such a young age, and was wary his wealthy son might lead an unproductive life (quite the opposite, in fact, came to pass). The senior Stainton asked his friend, Cambridge geologist and explorer Professor Sir James Mann Wordie, to advise Adam. Wordie recommended that any travel the young Stainton planned should have some definite purpose. Adam Stainton went on to contact George Taylor at the botany department of the British Museum on Wordie's recommendation.
His timing was fortuitous, for Taylor was then organising an expedition to the Nepalese Himalayas. Despite his lack of botanical training, Stainton was permitted to join experienced collectors John Williams and William Sykes on the 1954 trip, providing he paid his own way (which was of course no problem for someone of his means). On seeing Nepal's mountain scenery, Stainton was hooked and returned to the country in 1956 and 1962, in between which he made collections in Chitral (Pakistan), Greece, Turkey and northern Borneo.
Stainton's return to Nepal in 1962 marked the beginning of a decade of exploration in the country for him. Despite the length of time he spent there, he never learnt to speak Nepali, but his Sherpa nevertheless understood his English and broken Hindi, noted Stainton's Nepali co-collector Tirtha Shrestha. Shrestha also states that Stainton collected selectively in the 1960s, being more interested in taking photographs of plants in situ. He employed a team of some 15-20 porters, all paid from his own pocket. Stainton's enormous wealth did not mean that his time in Nepal was spent in luxury, though. The famine in west Nepal in 1965 affected him and his team as much as everyone else, but Stainton did not complain, despite losing nearly 20 kilos in weight on a trip in the first part of that year.
Stainton published Forests of Nepal in 1972 and Flowers of the Himalaya, with Oleg Polunin, in 1984. In 1972 he paid for the Japanese botanist and expert on the Himalayan flora, Hiroshi Hara, to come and work at the British Museum on the Enumeration of the Flowering Plants of Nepal. He never married or had children, but more than 20 Nepalese plant species bear his name.
Sources:
T.B. Shrestha, 1992, Newsletter of Himalayan Botany, 12: 3-9
W.T. Stearn, 1993, "John Williams (1915-1991) and Adam Stainton (1921-1991), Botanical Explorers of Nepal", Taxon, 42(4): 901-905.
