Francis Masson
Francis Masson (* August 1741 in Aberdeen, Scotland, † December 23, 1805 in Montreal) was a Scottish botanist and plant hunter. Its official botanical author abbreviation is " Masson ".
Life and work
Francis Masson came looking for a job as a gardener to London and met Joseph Banks and William Aiton in the Botanical Gardens at Kew, know. Banks sent him as the first plant collector on behalf of the British crown on the road.
Masson broke on 13 July 1772 by Plymouth aboard James Cook's Resolution to the Cape of Good Hope, where he arrived in Cape Town on 30 October 1772. On December 10, 1772, he began with Franz Pehr Oldenburg and locals on a achtspännigen oxcarts a two-month expedition in the Stellenbosch area and the Hottentots Holland Mountains. The second trip (September 11, 1773 to January 29, 1774 ) and the third trip (September 26, 1774 to December 28, 1774 ) he undertook together with Carl Peter Thunberg. 1776 will see a detailed description of these trips in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. Among the most famous products of these trips include the introduction of the bird of paradise flower ( Strelitzia reginae ) and the oldest still cultivated specimen of a container plant Encephalartos altensteinii he sent to Kew in 1773.
On December 26, 1775 Masson wrote a letter to Linnaeus, in which he asked him to personally perform the ceremony for a newly discovered genus of plants with the genus name Massonia that his traveling companion Thunberg had proposed. However, it did not have time because Linnaeus died two years later, and son Linnaeus published the first description in 1782.
On 19 May 1776, he left England again, this time around the Azores (São Miguel), the Canary Islands, Madeira and the West Indies ( especially St. Christopher ) to explore. In 1781 he returned to England.
In 1783 he traveled to Portugal, Spain, Tangier and again Madeira. 1786, he returned for ten years at the Cape of Good Hope. His travel records of this period have been lost.
Masson began in 1796 with the release of Stapelia novae. In this work he described numerous new species of the genus Stapelia. He had in the habitat, the associated 41 color plates - even drawn - with one exception. Among the first descriptions was also Stapelia gordonii ( Hoodia gordonii today ). In the same year he became a member of the Linnean Society.
At the suggestion of Sir Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society since 1778, he sailed in September 1797 and came to North America in December in New York. In late May 1798, he traveled to Oswego and gathered along the shore of Lake Ontario plants. In early July 1778, he reached the located on the Niagara Peninsula places Newark and finally Queenston (Ontario). From here his way through York in Upper Canada took him to Montreal, where he arrived on 16 October 1798. From here he explored in 1799 the areas along the Ottawa River and Lake Superior.
Masson died before his scheduled return home in the spring of 1806, shortly before Christmas 1805 in Montreal. He was buried in the cemetery of the Scotch Presbyterian Church.
In his travels Masson discovered hundreds of new species of plants. The new plants described by him come almost exclusively from the plant family Asclepiadaceae.
Ehrentaxon
Carl Peter Thunberg named in his honor the genus Massonia from the plant family of hyacinth plants ( Hyacinthaceae ). The first scientific description was published in 1782 by Carl Linnaeus ( son ) in Supplementum Plantarum.
Writings (selection )
- An Account of Three Journeys from the Cape Town into the Southern Parts of Africa; Undertaken for the Discovery of New Plants, towards the Improvement of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew. In: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. Volume 66, pp. 268-317, 1776
- An Account of the Iceland of St. Miguel. In: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. Volume 68, pp. 601-610, 1778
- Stapelia novae: or A collection of several new species of genus did. London, 1796-1797 - 4 parts