Philip Burnard Ayres

Philip Burnard Ayres ( born December 12, 1813 in Thame, Oxfordshire, † April 30, 1863 in Port Louis, Mauritius), was a British physician, botanist and plant collector who is known primarily for his research in Madagascar, the Seychelles and the Mascarene has become. At the same time he is regarded as the discoverer of the first subfossil Dodoknochen.

Life and work

As a young man collected Ayres plants in Britain and France. From October 1833 he studied medicine at University College London, where he 1836 the pharmacist license ( LSA ) acquired and was accepted into the circle of doctors at the Royal College ( MRC ) on 25 April 1836. On 9 December 1841, he became a doctor of medicine and practiced for almost 10 years in Thame. He then worked as a lecturer in chemistry at the Charing Cross Hospital. In 1851 he worked as a doctor in the dispensary of Islington. In addition, he was editor of the journal Pharmaceutical Times. In 1847 he had patented a process that converts the manure into fertilizer. 1856 Queen Victoria gave him the superintendence declared by Governor Robert Townsend Farquhar to Quarantine Island Flat Iceland, Mauritius. In his spare time, Ayres worked as a plant collector. He traveled to Madagascar, the Seychelles and the Mascarene Islands and wore extensive endemic plant material from these regions together, which is now in the herbaria of the Natural History Museum, London, the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, the Missouri Botanical Garden and the Muséum national d' histoire naturelle, Paris is issued. Ayres cataloged and drew the plants in the wild, which was common among the botanists of the 19th century. Originally he planned a book on the flora of Mauritius to write, but before it came about that he died in 1863 at the relapsing fever. His wife Harriet gathered his written records and bequeathed it to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

His eldest son Philip Burnard Ayres Chenery (1840-1899) was a well known doctor in Hong Kong.

Publications (selection )

• Micro- Chemical Researches on the Digestion of Starch and Amylaceous Foods. In: Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Volume 7, 1855, pp. 225-232, DOI: 10.1098/rspl.1854.0058.