Scottish horticulturalist and plant collector. Euan Cox was born in Perth and educated at Rugby School. He read history at Trinity College, Cambridge before serving in the First World War. After being invalided, he spent the rest of the war working in the Foreign Office. In 1919 Cox made the acquaintance of plant collector Reginald Farrer in London. Together they travelled to Upper Burma, collecting plants on the Chinese border in 1919-1920. Cox then returned to Britain, leaving Farrer to carry on the expedition, which would prove to be Farrer's last, for he died in October 1920. Many of the plants they gathered were introduced to horticulture, including Rhododendron mallotum, Deutzia calycosa and the Chinese coffin tree, Juniperus recurva var. Coxii. Cox went on to complete an account of the expedition in 1926, entitled Farrer's Last Journey, and ran a specialist horticultural bookshop in London. Maintaining a particular interest in Asian plants he published Plant Hunting in China: A History of Botanical Exploration in China and the Tibetan Marches in 1945, and a paper in the Proceedings of the Linnean Society on the East India Company and plant collecting in China (vol. 156, 1944). He was also gardening editor for Country Life magazine and in 1928 became editor of New Flora and Silva.

During the Second World War Cox's bookshop was bombed and he moved permanently back to Scotland, settling at the family home, Glendoick House, near Perth. Here he set about restoring the neglected gardens and established a rhododendron nursery, which he ran with his son Peter. He published a number of horticultural works, including A History of Gardening in Scotland (1935) and Modern Shrubs (1958, with P.A. Cox). Cox was honoured with the Royal Horticultural Society's Victoria Medal in 1954 and in 1970 with the Veitch Memorial Medal, in recognition of his plant collecting and rhododendron expertise.

Sources:
G. Taylor, 1977, Journal of the Scottish Rock Garden Club, 15(4): 292-294
S. Urquhart, 2010, "Cox, Euan Hillhouse Methven (1893-1977)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online edn:
http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/96768, accessed 19 August 2011.