X-Nico

3 unusual facts about William Grant Milne


Meryta denhamii

denhamii owes its discovery to Scots William Grant Milne (?-1866), a gardener at the Edinburgh Botanic Garden, who joined the HMS Herald expedition to the south-western Pacific (1852-1856) as a botanist.

William Grant Milne

Milne, the discoverer of several plants, including the rare New Caledonian tree Meryta denhamii which he found growing on the Isle of Pines in 1853 and sent to the Royal Botanical Gardens in Kew, had botanist Berthold Carl Seemann name the plant Meryta denhamii after Captain Denham (for whom the town of Denham, Western Australia was also named).

Milne was initially accompanied by fellow Scots botanist John MacGillivray, who left the ship in 1855 after a dispute with Captain Henry Mangles Denham.



see also