George Bentham (1800 - 1884)
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Biography
Sources
Selected publications
Biography
He had a very eventful early life, to set down which, however, I would basically have to transcribe Isley and Gray. But I will say that it did involve setting up military emplacements in St. Petersburg and journeying to Siberia. He eventually settled in at Kew (unpaid - - he was independently wealthy) and did taxonomy for the entire second half of his life. He is basically included here so I have a place to write down the following quote from Gray:
An important series of monographs... was contributed to Augustin Pyramis De Candolle's Prodromus... these filling 1133 pages according to the surviving editor. If not quite the largest collaborator of the De Candolles, as counted in pages, he was so in the number of plants described, and his work was of the best. It was also ready in time, which is more than can be said of the collaborators in general."
Sources
Duane Isley (1994) One Hundred and One Botanists
Dr. Asa Gray (1889) Scientific Papers of Asa Gray
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Selected Publications
George Bentham (1826) Catalogue des plantes indigènes de Pyrénées et du Bas Languedoc, avec des notes et observations sur les espèces nouvelles ou peu connues; précédé d'une notice sur un voyage botanique fait dans les Pyrénées pendant l'été de 1825 (Catalogue of indigenous plants of the Pyrenees and Bas Languedoc, with notes and observations on new or little-known species; with a preface detailing a botanical expedition to the Pyrenees in the summer of 1825)
George Bentham (1844 - 1846) The botany of the voyage of H. M. S. Sulphur, under the command of Captain Sir Edward Belcher, during the years 1836-42. Published under the authority of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty 12 vol.
George Bentham (1862 - 1883) Genera plantarum ad exemplaria imprimis in herbariis Kewensibus servata definita (Genera of plants in the herbarium of the Kew botanical gardens) 3 vol.This is his "biggee", at which he worked until he could not any more...
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