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A Dutch Botanist, specialising on the flora of the Dutch East Indies.

Michie was a Probationer Gardener at RBGE starting in September 1948, eventually becaming a Botanical Foreman before leaving in July 1954 to work at the Institute of Parks, Lower Basildon, Reading.

Born Perthshire 1754, died London 1842
Archibald Menzies was initially employed as a gardener at the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh (then on Leith Walk) where the Regius Keeper, John Hope, stimulated his interest in botany. In 1778 he toured the Highlands and Hebrides collecting plants and Hope later encouraged him to study medicine. He graduated from Edinburgh University in 1781 and joined the Royal Navy where his career as a naval surgeon took him all over the world. He was chosen as naturalist and surgeon on the Discovery under Captain Vancouver on a long voyage exploring and charting the coasts of north-west America and the Pacific from 1790 to 1795. Menzies made the first recorded ascent by a European of Mauna Loa in Hawaii. He brought back a great variety of plants, cryptogams and natural history objects from his expeditions. He introduced to Britain the monkey puzzle araucaria araucana and wrote the first description of the Douglas fir, pseudotsuga menziesii. In 1790 he was elected fellow of the Linnaean Society in whose transactions he published accounts of his natural history findings during the 1790s as well as publishing an account of the Discovery voyage in the contemporary ‘Magazine of Natural History’. However he tended to rely on other botanists to publicise and interpret his findings and some of his journals were not published until the twentieth century. After retiring from the navy, Menzies practised as a doctor in London and on his death his herbarium of grasses, sedges and cryptogams was bequeathed to the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.
Sources: Dictionary of National Biography; HR Fletcher and WH Brown ‘The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh 1670-1970’; Deni Bown, ‘4 Gardens in One’; (R. Desmond ‘Dictionary of British and Irish Botanists and Horticulturalists)
D.W.

Born Perthshire 1839; died Perthshire 1922
Charles McIntosh, sometimes known as ‘The Perthshire Naturalist’, was a postman whose rounds enabled him to observe and study the local flora and fauna of rural Perthshire. He was a member of the Perthshire Society of Natural Science and later the Cryptogamic Society of Scotland. He became friends with the young Beatrix Potter, then holidaying in the Dunkeld area, through their common interest in fungi, and helped improve the accuracy of her illustrations, taught her taxonomy and supplied live specimens to paint during the winter. McIntosh discovered thirteen species of fungus completely new to Britain and four new to science and some of his collection is now in the City of Perth museum. He contributed to FBW White’s ‘Fl. Perthshire’ published in1898.
Sources: R. Desmond ‘Dictionary of British and Irish Botanists and Horticulturalists’;‘Perthshire Diary’ for 1922; City of Perth Council website
D.W.

Scottish Tory politician and philanthropist. Chairman of the Forestry Commission between 1929 amd 1932. Founder member of the National Trust for Scotland in 1931, becoming Vice-President and later, President.

Born in Ireland in 1805, Madden was an Officer in the Bengal Artillery between 1830 and 1849. He sent seeds to Glasnevin Botanic Garden in Dublin between 1841 and 1849, and after this collected plants in Aden, Suez, Cairo and Malta. He became President of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh in 1853 and was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
Source: Desmond