Richard Spruce
Encyclopedia
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
botanist. One of the great Victorian
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
botanical explorers
Exploration
Exploration is the act of searching or traveling around a terrain for the purpose of discovery of resources or information. Exploration occurs in all non-sessile animal species, including humans...
, Spruce spent approximately 15 years exploring the Amazon
Amazon Rainforest
The Amazon Rainforest , also known in English as Amazonia or the Amazon Jungle, is a moist broadleaf forest that covers most of the Amazon Basin of South America...
from the Andes
Andes
The Andes is the world's longest continental mountain range. It is a continual range of highlands along the western coast of South America. This range is about long, about to wide , and of an average height of about .Along its length, the Andes is split into several ranges, which are separated...
to the mouth, and was one of the first European
European ethnic groups
The ethnic groups in Europe are the various ethnic groups that reside in the nations of Europe. European ethnology is the field of anthropology focusing on Europe....
s to visit many of the places where he collected specimens.
The plants and objects collected by Spruce (mostly in Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
) from 1849 to 1864 form an important botanical, historical and ethnological resource, and are currently being databased at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, usually referred to as Kew Gardens, is 121 hectares of gardens and botanical glasshouses between Richmond and Kew in southwest London, England. "The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew" and the brand name "Kew" are also used as umbrella terms for the institution that runs...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and at Trinity College Dublin.
Spruce successfully cultivated bitter bark quinine
Quinine
Quinine is a natural white crystalline alkaloid having antipyretic , antimalarial, analgesic , anti-inflammatory properties and a bitter taste. It is a stereoisomer of quinidine which, unlike quinine, is an anti-arrhythmic...
, making the drug widely available for the first time. The Brazilian peoples were the discoverers of the bark's anti-malaria
Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
l action.
Early life
The son of a schoolmaster, Spruce was born near Ganthorpe, a small village near the park and mansion of Castle HowardCastle Howard
Castle Howard is a stately home in North Yorkshire, England, north of York. One of the grandest private residences in Britain, most of it was built between 1699 and 1712 for the 3rd Earl of Carlisle, to a design by Sir John Vanbrugh...
, in Yorkshire
Yorkshire
Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...
. He lived for some years in Welburn
Welburn (Amotherby Ward)
Welburn is a village and civil parish in the Ryedale district of North Yorkshire, England, on the edge of the Howardian Hills, near to the stately home Castle Howard. It is about 14 miles from York and 5 miles south-west of Malton/Norton. It is a popular area for walkers and bird-watchers. The...
, to the south, before going to South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
. After his return, he passed the last 17 years of his life in nearby Coneysthorpe
Coneysthorpe
Coneysthorpe is a small village and civil parish in the Ryedale district of North Yorkshire, England. It is situated near Castle Howard and 4 miles west of Malton. The Centenary Way long-distance path runs through the village....
.
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 and this contains 485 species of flowering plants. Several of Spruce's localities for the rarer plants are given in Henry Baines's Flora of Yorkshire, published in 1840
Career
This early interest in botanyBotany
Botany, plant science, or plant biology is a branch of biology that involves the scientific study of plant life. Traditionally, botany also included the study of fungi, algae and viruses...
led him to being sent on a collecting trip in the Pyrenees
Pyrenees
The Pyrenees is a range of mountains in southwest Europe that forms a natural border between France and Spain...
in 1845-6. In 1849 he followed Alfred Russel Wallace
Alfred Russel Wallace
Alfred Russel Wallace, OM, FRS was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist and biologist...
and Henry Walter Bates
Henry Walter Bates
Henry Walter Bates FRS FLS FGS was an English naturalist and explorer who gave the first scientific account of mimicry in animals. He was most famous for his expedition to the Amazon with Alfred Russel Wallace in 1848. Wallace returned in 1852, but lost his collection in a shipwreck...
to the Amazon
Amazon Basin
The Amazon Basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributaries that drains an area of about , or roughly 40 percent of South America. The basin is located in the countries of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, and Venezuela...
, collecting more than 30,000 plant specimens there and in the Andes
Andes
The Andes is the world's longest continental mountain range. It is a continual range of highlands along the western coast of South America. This range is about long, about to wide , and of an average height of about .Along its length, the Andes is split into several ranges, which are separated...
during the next 14 years. After returning to England he wrote The Hepaticae of the Amazon and the Andes of Peru and Ecuador.
His paper on the Musci and Hepaticae of Teesdale
Teesdale
Teesdale is a dale, or valley, of the east side of the Pennines in England. Large parts of Teesdale fall within the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty - the second largest AONB in England and Wales. The River Tees rises below Cross Fell, the highest hill in the Pennines, and its...
, the result of a three weeks' excursion, showed him to be one of the most lynx-eyed discoverers of rare species, as well as an accurate discriminator of them. In Baines's Flora of Yorkshire (1840) only four mosses were recorded from Teesdale
Teesdale
Teesdale is a dale, or valley, of the east side of the Pennines in England. Large parts of Teesdale fall within the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty - the second largest AONB in England and Wales. The River Tees rises below Cross Fell, the highest hill in the Pennines, and its...
, though no doubt many more had been collected – Spruce raised the number to 167 mosses and 41 hepaticae, of which six mosses and one Jungermannia were new to Britain.
In April 1845 he published in the London Journal of Botany descriptions of 23 new British mosses, of which about half were discovered by himself and the remainder by other botanists.
In the same year he published, in the Phytologist, his "List of the Musci and Hepaticae of Yorkshire," in which he recorded no less than 48 mosses new to the English Flora
Flora
Flora is the plant life occurring in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring or indigenous—native plant life. The corresponding term for animals is fauna.-Etymology:...
and 33 others new to that of Yorkshire
Yorkshire
Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...
.
In 1864 Spruce was awarded a PhD by the Academiae Germanicae Naturae Curiosum and in 1866 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.
Quotations
- "...My delicate health and retiring disposition have combined with my love of botanical pursuits to render me fond of solitary study, and I must confess that I feel a sort of shrinking at the idea of engaging in the turmoil of active life..."
External links
Further reading
- Pearson M. Richard Spruce: naturalist and explorer. Hudson History, Settle, Yorkshire 2004.
- Raby, Peter Bright Paradise ISBN 0 7011 4613 3
- Seaward M.R.D. and Fitzgerald S.M.D. (eds) Richard Spruce (1817–1893): botanist and explorer. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew 1996. [A goldmine of details about his life & work as a botanist, with details of archival sources and a bibliography of articles by and about Spruce]
- Wallace A.R. (ed) and Spruce R. Notes of a botanist on the Amazon and the Andes... during the years 1849-1864 by Richard Spruce PhD. 2 vols, cr8vo, Macmillan, London 1908. [the first part of the first volume contains all the text completed by Spruce before his death, and the rest is written by Wallace on the basis of Spruce's notes]