Organisation(s)
BM (main), BR, CGE, CGG, COI, E, GOET, K, LD, MO, OXF, PH
Countries
Tropical Africa: Benin, Gambia, Ghana, Niger, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Sierra LeoneBrazilian region: BrazilWest African Islands: Cape Verde, Canary IslandsCaribbean region: Cuba, Trinidad and Tobago
Biography
Scottish botanist and plant collector, the son of George Don, principal gardener at the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh. After working in nurseries in Edinburgh (Mssrs Dicksons) and London (The Portman), he was appointed in 1816 as foreman gardener at Chelsea Physic Garden under William Anderson.
Don became the first professional collector sent out by the Horticultural Society of London when he was chosen (1821) to accompany a scientific expedition to West Africa, South America, and the West Indies, which had been mounted by the astronomer Captain Edward Sabine - brother of John Sabine, Secretary of the Horticultural Society - to measure variation in the gravitational force at different latitudes. Don sailed from England aboard HMS Iphigenia on 13 November 1821, and arrived in Freetown, by way of the Canary Islands and Cape Verde, on 18 February 1822. He spent the next two months exploring Sierra Leone, Gambia, and Guinea, before re-embarking on HMS Pheasant, another ship of the expedition, to cross the Atlantic to Brazil. The expedition sailed northward to the West Indies in November and reached the eastern seaboard of the United States in December.
At this stage of the journey many of the tropical plants on board were killed by frost. Fortunately earlier shipments had arrived safely and there were no further losses on the return voyage, which landed back in England in February 1823. Don's collection, including the herbarium specimens that went to Kew and to the Lindley herbarium at Cambridge, contained a wealth of botanical discoveries, most of which, such as Allium, Aquilegia, and Rhododendron, were written up Joseph Sabine. Meanwhile the collection of living plants, seeds, and bulbs that he brought back for the Horticultural Society's gardens introduced many new species to European cultivation. Even so, despite his apparent success, the Horticultural Society sacked him in 1825, when he described some of the new species from Sierra Leone, for violating his agreement not to publish on his collection.
Don went on to become a successful writer and a fellow of the Linnean Soceity. In addition to his best-known work, A General System of Gardening and Botany, he revised Loudon's Encyclopaedia of Plants to comply with a Linnean arrangement and published monographs on Allium and Combretum. Original material from George Don was purchased by BM in 1856 during the sale of the herbarium and library of the Horticultural Society of London. It includes many types from the Niger Flora of J.D. Hooker. He is commemorated in the Plant Hunter's Garden in Pitlochry and by species including Andropogon donianus Benth., Memecylon donianum Planch. ex Benth. and Polygala donii Hook. f.
Sources:
S. Challenger, 1973, "Captain Edward Sabine and HMS Pheasant", Garden History, 2(1): 35-37
W.T. Stearn, 2004, "Don, George (1798-1856)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
References
Brummitt, R.K. & Powell, C.E., Authors Pl. Names (1992): 171; Desmond, R., Dict. Brit. Irish Bot. Hortic., ed. 2 (1994): 212; Hepper, F.N. & Neate, F., Pl. Collectors W. Africa (1971): 26; Lanjouw, J. & Stafleu, F.A., Index Herb. Coll. A-D (1954): 165; Van der Maesen, L.J.G. & Akoègninou, A., Willdenowia 34 (2004): 413;
