Comments from Mr. PGC: Throughout history, many people have made lasting contributions to the world of plants. In these pages, we hope to pay tribute to some of them. Our concentration will be primarily on those who have introduced plants to the gardening world, those who have helped spread the word about gardening and those who have made significant contributions to landscaping and landscaping design around the world.

This list will be constantly growing as we add new names. If you have someone who you think should be on the list, please send us an Email.

This Russian professor made several plant explorations to eastern Asia.

Plants associated with him include Euonymus maackii, Lonicera maackii and Prunus maackii.

Secretary of the Linnaean Society and has the genus, Macleaya, named for him. This is a group of herbaceous plants from East Asia that include the plume poppy.

 

Magnol was a French Botanist who was the Director of the Royal Botanic Garden of Montpellier, France. He made significant contributions to the current botanical scheme of plant classification in the area of plant families.

The plant family, Magnoliaceae, was named in his honor.

Japanese botanist responsible for naming and describing many native plants.

Plants named for him include Gentiana makinoi, Polystichum makinoi, Sedum makinoi and Rhododendron makinoi.

French Huguenaut designer who fled to the Netherlands after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 in France. He is associated with the magnificent Het Loo baroque garden and the Great Parterre at Hampton Court laid out for Prince William of Orange (1650-1702) and Princess Mary II (1662-1695).

Marot achieved a high degree of unity by using similar designs in different ways in stucco ceilings, garden parterres, wrought ironwork, silk wall hangings, garden urns and ceiling paintings. Designs attributed to him may also be seen at Leiden Botanic Garden, Kasteel Rosendael, Clingendael and Queekhoven.

A Scotsman from Aberdeen, Francis Masson was the first professional plant collector sent out on behalf of Kew Gardens. He made collections in the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa including many of the Erica and Stapelia species. He also visited the Canary Islands, the Azores, the West Indies and Canada on plant expeditions.

He added 400 new species to the Kew collection including Protea cynaroides 'King Protea' and Trillium grandiflorum.

The genus, Matteucia, is named for this Italian scientist. This is a small group of plants in the Family, Polypodiaceae.

 

The genus, Matthiola (Stocks), which is a member of the Brassicaceae Family, is named for this Italian botanist and doctor.

 

This Russian botanist worked at the botanic garden in St. Petersburg and went on journeys to Asia, South America and other places in search of plants.

Plants associated with him include Acer maximowiczii, Allium maximowiczii, Ampelopsis brevipedunculata var. maximowiczii, Betula maximowiczii, Euonymus maximowiczianus, Geranium maximowiczii, Primula maximowiczii, Tulipa linifolia Maximowiczii Group and Weigela maximowiczii.

He was the Canadian farmer who is credited with discovering the McIntosh Red apple.

Naval surgeon and botanist, sailed on Vancouver's 'Discovery' on its voyage of exploration to the Northwest in the 1790s. He was the first European botanist to see the colossal conifers of the Pacific coast. He also explored plants in Europe, North & South America, Chile and Canada.

The Latin name of the Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) commemorates him.  Other plants associated with him include Ribes speciosum, Lubinus arboreus, Arbutus menziesii, Nothofagus menziesii, Sanguisorba menziesii, Nemophila menziesii, and Delphinium menziesii.

A Scotsman, who succeeded his father as Curator of the Chelsea Physic Garden. He was curator for sixty years, and made the garden the finest of its kind in Europe. His massive Gardener's Dictionary, later enlarged by Thomas Martyn, was the standard work on gardening in Europe and America for a century.

A Frenchman who came from a family distinguished as gardeners for three generations. He was the first garden writer to advocate planting great avenues of trees. His book, Le Jardin de Plaisir (1651) set out the principles of French garden design. After the Restoration, Charles II appointed Mollet head gardener at St James about 1661, and under him the place was transformed in accordance with the French ideas, ie. the great avenues planted and the canal dug.

Spanish botanist whose name was given to the genus, Monarda (beebalm, bergomot).

 

A leading middle-class painter of the Impressionist movement, Monet was also an accomplished botanist and a keen gardener. Starting in 1883, he transformed his garden at Giverny, France, into the subject for many of his immortal paintings.

“My garden is slow work, pursued with love, and I do not deny that I am proud of it. Forty years ago, when I established myself here, there was nothing but a farmhouse and a poor orchard. I bought the house and little by little I enlarged and organized it. I dug, planted, weeded, myself in the evenings the children watered.” In 1924, two years before his death, Monet said: “I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.”
- Claude Monet

Montgomery was an accountant, attorney and successful businessman with a passion for plant collecting. With the guidance of David Fairchild, he pursued the dream of creating a botanical garden in Miami, the one place in the continental U.S. where tropical plants could grow outdoors year-round.

Opened to the public in 1938, Fairchild was established on an 83-acre site south of Miami purchased by Col. Montgomery and later deeded in large part to Miami-Dade County. Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden was designed by renowned landscape architect William Lyman Phillips, member of the Frederick Law Olmsted partnership, and the leading landscape designer in South Florida during the 1930s.

Had at his Chelsea home one of the most noted gardens in England. This garden occupied the site of what, until 1876, was Chelsea Park, now the Elm Park estate. A great avenue in Sir Thomas' garden led to the Thames River, where he kept his eight oared barge which used for going to Whitehall and the city.

Sir Thomas More's name is always associated with rosemary, of which he wrote: "As for rosemarie I let it run all over my garden walls, not only because my bees love it, but because it is the herb sacred to remembrance and to friendship whence a spray of it hath a dumb language."

French nurseryman and clematis breeder from Lyon, France. His clematis introductions include Clematis 'Ville de Lyon', Clematis 'Comtesse de Bouchaud' and Clematis 'Perle d'Azure'.

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