Spruce , Richard , 1817-1893 , botanist

Botanical collection begun in Yorkshire c 1833; specialized in mosses and liverworts, an interest confirmed after a visit to Dr Thomas Glanville Taylor in Ireland in 1848. Came to the attention of Sir William Hooker in 1844 and sent to the Pyrenees on an expedition (1845-6) under the sponsorship of George Bentham. Hooker, Bentham and other botanists sent Spruce to South America in 1849. At the end of that year he travelled up the Amazon to Santarem where he met zoologist Alfred Russel Wallace and lepidopterist Henry Walter Bates. His exploration at this date included plants with medicinal properties, such as the datura and coca plants. He spent three years on the Orinoco and Negro rivers, then in 1854 ascended the Amazon by steamer to Nantua in Peru and then to the Andes, where he stayed two years and collected 250 species of ferns. In 1857 he came down the Amazon and went to Ecuador, later moving to Ambato which he made his headquarters and explored the Quintensian Andes. The India Office commissioned him to collect seeds and polants of the cinchona, the source of quinine, which were later sent to India. He published his report on this in 1861. In 1867 he finally returned to England and spent the remaining twenty seven years of life sorting his collections. These included notes on twenty one Amazonian languages, many hundreds of drawings, and notes and maps of three previously unexplored rivers.