Richard Spruce

Richard Spruce

Richard Spruce (September 10, 1817December 28, 1893) was an English botanist. One of the great Victorian botanical explorers, Spruce spent approximately 15 years exploring the Amazon from the Andes to the mouth, and was one of the first Europeans to visit many of the places where he collected specimens.

The plants and objects collected by Spruce (mostly in Brazil) from 1849 to 1864 form an important botanical, historical and ethnological resource, and are currently being databased at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London.

Spruce successfully cultivated bitter bark quinine, making the drug widely available for the first time. The Brazilian peoples were the discoverers of the bark's anti-malarial action.

Early life

The son of a schoolmaster, Spruce was born near Ganthorpe, a small village near the park and mansion of Castle Howard, in Yorkshire. He lived for some years in Welburn, to the south, before going to South America. After his return, he passed the last 17 years of his life in nearby Coneysthorpe.

As a child, Spruce "showed much aptitude for learning, and at an early age developed a great love of nature. Amongst his favourite amusements was the making of lists of plants, and he had also a great liking for astronomy." In 1834, aged 16, he drew up a neatly written list of all the plants he had found around Ganthorpe – arranged alphabetically and containing 403 species, the gathering and naming must certainly have occupied some years.

Three years later he had drawn up a "List of the Flora of the Malton District” and this contains 485 species of flowering plants. Several of Spruce's localities for the rarer plants are given in Henry Baines's "Flora of Yorkshire", published in 1840

Career

This early interest in botany led him to being sent on a collecting trip in the Pyrenees in 1845-6. In 1849 he followed Alfred Russel Wallace and Henry Walter Bates to the Amazon, collecting more than 30,000 plant specimens there and in the Andes during the next 14 years. After returning to England he wrote "The Hepaticae of the Amazon and the Andes of Peru and Ecuador".

His paper on the Musci and Hepaticae of Teesdale, the result of a three weeks' excursion, showed him to be one of the most lynx-eyed discoverers of rare species, as well as an accurate discriminator of them. In Baines's Flora of Yorkshire (1840) only four mosses were recorded from Teesdale, though no doubt many more had been collected – Spruce raised the number to 167 mosses and 41 hepaticae, of which six mosses and one Jungermannia were new to Britain.

In April 1845 he published in the London Journal of Botany descriptions of 23 new British mosses, of which about half were discovered by himself and the remainder by other botanists.In the same year he published, in the Phytologist, his "List of the Musci and Hepaticae of Yorkshire," in which he recorded no less than 48 mosses new to the English Flora and 33 others new to that of Yorkshire.

In 1864 Spruce was awarded a PhD by the Academiae Germanicae Naturae Curiosum and in 1866 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.

Quotations

* "...My delicate health and retiring disposition have combined with my love of botanical pursuits to render me fond of solitary study, and I must confess that I feel a sort of shrinking at the idea of engaging in the turmoil of active life..."

References

*Raby, Peter - "Bright Paradise" ISBN 0 7011 4613 3

External links

* [http://internt.nhm.ac.uk/jdsml/botany/spruce/ Richard Spruce Collection, Royal Botanic Gardens]

Further reading

*Pearson M. "Richard Spruce: naturalist and explorer". Hudson History, Settle, Yorkshire 2004.
*Seaward M.R.D. and Fitzgerald S.M.D. (eds) "Richard Spruce (1817-1893): botanist and explorer". Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew 1996.
*Wallace A.R. (ed) and Spruce R. "Notes of a botanist on the Amazon and the Andes... during the years 1849-1864 by Richard Spruce PhD". 2 vols, cr8vo, Macmillan, London 1908. [the first part of the first volume contains all the text completed by Spruce before his death, and the rest is written by Wallace on the basis of Spruce's notes]
*Honigsbaum Mark. The Fever Trail-Search of the Cure for Malaria. 2001.Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Chicago, Illinois.


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужно решить контрольную?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Richard Spruce — Nacimiento …   Wikipedia Español

  • Richard Spruce — Richard Spruce. Richard Spruce (* 10. September 1817 in Ganthorpe, Yorkshire, England; † 28. Dezember 1893 in Coneysthorpe, Yorkshire) war ein englischer Botaniker und Naturforscher. Er wurde bekannt als Spezialist für Bryophyta (Moose) und durch …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Richard Spruce — est un médecin et un naturaliste britannique, né le 10 septembre 1817 à Ganthorpe (Yorkshire) et mort le 28 décembre 1893 à Castle Howard (Yorkshire) …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Spruce — ist der Familienname folgender Personen: Richard Spruce (1817–1893), englischer Botaniker und Naturforscher Spruce bezeichnet folgende Orte in den Vereinigten Staaten Spruce (Michigan) Spruce (Nevada) Spruce (Wisconsin) Spruce Island, Insel des… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Richard Evans Schultes — Saltar a navegación, búsqueda Richard Evans Schultes Nacimiento 12 de enero 1915 Fallecimiento 10 de abril 2001 Residencia Cambridge …   Wikipedia Español

  • Spruce (disambiguation) — Spruce are trees in the genus Picea . Spruce may also mean:Places: *Spruce, Wisconsin, United States of America *Spruce Township, Minnesota, United States of AmericaPeople: *Richard Spruce, English botanist and explorer *Stuart Spruce, former… …   Wikipedia

  • Spruce — Recorded in several spellings including Prouse, Prewse, Prowse, Pruce, and Spruce, this is a surname of two possible origins. Firstly, it may be from the Old French and later English word prous or prouz , meaning valiant or, doughty. Secondly, it …   Surnames reference

  • Spruce — Ричард Спрюс англ. Richard Spruce Дата рождения: 10 сентября 1817 Место рождения: селение англ. Ganthorpe у поместья Касл Ховард в Йоркшире …   Википедия

  • Richard Evans Schultes — Infobox Scientist box width = name = Richard Evans Schultes image width = caption = birth date = January 12, 1915 birth place = death date = April 10, 2001 death place = residence = Cambridge, Massachusetts citizenship = United States nationality …   Wikipedia

  • Richard Spooner (equestrian) — Richard Spooner is an internationally successful equestrian. He competes in the sport of show jumping on the West Coast of the United States and in Europe. In June 2006 at Spruce Meadows, he cleared the $1 million mark, the 10th rider to reach… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”