Jim "James" Boughtwood Comber (1929 - 7 September 2005) was born in Scotland into a family famous for horticulture

Horticulture

Horticulture is the industry and science of plant cultivation including the process of preparing soil for the planting of seeds, tubers, or cuttings. Horticulturists work and conduct research in the disciplines of plant propagation and cultivation, crop production, plant breeding and genetic...

. After studying in Kew

Kew

Kew is a place in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames in South West London. Kew is best known for being the location of the Royal Botanic Gardens, now a World Heritage Site, which includes Kew Palace...

 he worked at Sapang

Sapang

Sapang, Sabah is geographically located at latitude 4° 37' 58" North of the Equator and longitude 118° 19' 58" East of the Prime Meridian on the Map of the world....

 (Sabah, Malaysia) and later near Medan

Medan

- Demography :The city is Indonesia's fourth most populous after Jakarta, Surabaya, and Bandung, and Indonesia's largest city outside of Java island. Much of the population lies outside its city limits, especially in Deli Serdang....

 (Sumatra, Indonesia). After appointment by Ciba-Geigy

Novartis

Novartis International AG is a multinational pharmaceutical company based in Basel, Switzerland, ranking number three in sales among the world-wide industry...

 he stayed at Jakarta

Jakarta

Jakarta is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Officially known as the Special Capital Territory of Jakarta, it is located on the northwest coast of Java, has an area of , and a population of 9,580,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political centre...

 and later Surabaya

Surabaya

Surabaya is Indonesia's second-largest city with a population of over 2.7 million , and the capital of the province of East Java...

. He spent some of his leisure time

Leisure

Leisure, or free time, is time spent away from business, work, and domestic chores. It is also the periods of time before or after necessary activities such as eating, sleeping and, where it is compulsory, education....

 photographing orchids. Later he wrote two books about the orchids of Java

Java

Java is an island of Indonesia. With a population of 135 million , it is the world's most populous island, and one of the most densely populated regions in the world. It is home to 60% of Indonesia's population. The Indonesian capital city, Jakarta, is in west Java...

 and Sumatra

Sumatra

Sumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 with a population of 50,365,538...

.

In Orchids of Sumatra, Jim Comber describes the 1,118 species (in 139 genera) known from Sumatra and the surrounding islands. Jim, who was a student at Kew, worked in South East Asia for 35 years where he was able to photograph and make notes on the wild orchids. He illustrates Orchids of Sumatra with 664 colour photographs.

He discovered some new species of orchid; two are named in his honour: Sarcoglyphis comberi J.J.Wood and Bulbophyllum comberi

Bulbophyllum comberi

Bulbophyllum comberi is a species of orchid in the genus Bulbophyllum. The species was named in the honour of James Comber.-References:**...

J. J. Vermeulen.