|
Richard Spruce (10 September 1817 – 28 December 1893) was an English botanist. One of the great Victorian botanical explorers, Spruce spent 15 years exploring the Amazon from the Andes to its mouth, and was one of the first Europeans to visit many of the places where he collected specimens.〔Pearson, M. ''Richard Spruce: Naturalist and Explorer''. Hudson History, Settle, Yorkshire. 2004.〕 The plants and objects collected by Spruce (mostly in Brazil) from 1849 to 1864 form an important botanical, historical and ethnological resource, and have been indexed at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London, at Trinity College Dublin, and at the University of Manchester.〔Seaward, M. R. D. and S. M. D. Fitzgerald. (eds.) ''Richard Spruce (1817-1893): Botanist and Explorer''. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. 1996.〕 Spruce cultivated bitter bark quinine, making the drug widely available for the first time. The bark had historically been used by native South Americans as a cure for malaria.〔Honigsbaum, M. ''The Fever Trail: In Search of the Cure for Malaria''. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Chicago, Illinois. 2001.〕 == Early life == The son of a schoolmaster, Spruce was born near Ganthorpe, a small village near 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" containing 485 species of flowering plants. Several of Spruce's localities for the rarer plants are given in Henry Baines (botanist)'s ''Flora of Yorkshire'', published in 1840. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Richard Spruce」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|