John Clayton (botanist)

John Clayton (1694–1773), was a Colonial plant collector in Virginia. Clayton was born in England, and moved to Virginia with his father in 1715, where he lived in Gloucester County, exploring the region botanically. Clayton sent many specimens, as well as manuscript descriptions, to Dutch botanist Jan Frederik Gronovius in the 1730s. Without Clayton's knowledge, Gronovius used the material in his "Flora Virginica" (1739–1743, 2nd ed. 1762). Many of Clayton’s specimens were also studied by the European botanists Carl Linnaeus and George Clifford. In Clayton’s honor, Linnaeus named the spring beauty, a common eastern American wildflower, "Claytonia virginica."

Further reading

*cite book | title = John Clayton: Pioneer of American Botany | author = Edmund Berkeley and Dorothy Smith Berkeley | publisher = University of North Carolina press, Chapel Hill | year = 1963 | year = 1963 (Reviewed for example in cite journal | doi = 10.1126/science.141.3585.1027-b | title = John Clayton: Pioneer of American Botany. Edmund Berkeley and Dorothy Smith Berkeley. University of North Carolina press, Chapel Hill, 1963. xii + 236pp. $6 | year = 1963 | author = Ewan, J. | journal = Science | volume = 141 | pages = 1027).

External links

* [http://www.nhm.ac.uk/botany/clayton/ Clayton herbarium page]

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