John Davidson (botanist)

Infobox_Scientist
name = John Davidson


caption =
birth_date = 1878
birth_place = Aberdeen, Scotland
death_date = 1970
death_place = Vancouver, Canada
nationality =
field = Botanist
work_institution = University of British Columbia
alma_mater = Robert Gordon's College and University of Aberdeen
known_for = First Provincial Botanist, British Columbia and Founding Director UBC Botanical Garden
prizes =
footnotes =

John Davidson (1878 – 1970) was a notable Scottish-Canadian botanist. Born in Aberdeen, he worked at the University of Aberdeen (1893 – 1911) before being appointed the first Provincial Botanist of British Columbia. Davidson established an herbarium on West Pender Street, Vancouver, and a botanical garden near New Westminster, at Coquitlam (at the [http://colony-farm.blogspot.com/ [Colony Farm] and [http://essondale.blogspot.com/ [Essondale] farming and mental hospital complex,which later became [http://riverviewhospital.blogspot.com/ [Riverview Hospital] in the 1950s). This collection was moved to the University of British Columbia (UBC) in 1916 where it became the UBC Botanical Garden. This move is often described as having involved the transfer of 25,000 plants, though this figure is an exaggeration. Even if Davidson and his staff transferred two thousand plants, the feat would still have been extraordinary. As a UBC faculty member in Botany from 1916 to 1948 Davidson was instrumental in developing botany teaching at the University.

Other activities

He also founded the [http://www.naturevancouver.ca/ [Vancouver Natural History Society] , which has been renamed as; Nature Vancouver.

Works

;Published works (partial list)
* 1922: "The Cascara Tree in British Columbia"
* 1923: "Commercial Drug Plant Cultivation in British Columbia"
* 1933: "Poisonous Plants of British Columbia"
* 1942: "The Cascara Tree in British Columbia"
* 1943: "Edible Plants of British Columbia"
* 1949: "The Cascara Tree in Relation to Drug Farming in British Columbia"

ee also

* UBC Botanical Garden

External links

* [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/u_arch/davidson.html University of British Columbia Library Archive] - a list of archival material.
* [http://botanyjohn.blogspot.com/] A blog about "Botany John", with links to UBC's John Davidson website.
* [http://www.botanyjohn.org/] UBC's Virtual Museum of Canada exhibition, Botany John: Legacy of a Canadian Botanist.

Persondata
NAME=Davidson, John
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION=botanist
DATE OF BIRTH=1878
PLACE OF BIRTH=Aberdeen, Scotland
DATE OF DEATH=1970
PLACE OF DEATH=Vancouver, Canada