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John Buchanan (botanist)

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John Buchanan, 1883–1890, Dunedin, by John Richard Morris. No Known Copyright Restrictions. Te Papa (O.041253)

John Buchanan (13 October 1819 – 18 October 1898) was a New Zealand botanist and scientific artist. He was a fellow of the Linnean Society.[1]

Biography

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Portrait of John Buchanan, New Zealand, by Henry Morland Gore. Gift of the New Zealand Institute, 1885. No Known Copyright Restrictions. Te Papa (1992-0035-1685)

Buchanan was born in Dunbartonshire, Scotland, and in his early life apprenticed as a calico pattern designer,[2] then was foreman of a drawing shop, with a hobby of botany.[1] He emigrated to Dunedin, New Zealand, in 1852, in the early years of the Scottish settlement, and worked as a survey assistant and gold prospector during the Otago gold rush.[1][2][3] During this time, he was an amateur botanist, collecting plant specimens that he sent to John Ross, a friend in Scotland who was also a amateur botanist.[1][2] When James Hector was leaving Britain in 1861 to head the Geological Survey of Otago, Joseph Dalton Hooker, who had heard of Buchanan from Ross, suggested him to Hector as a botanist.[3] In 1862 Hector employed Buchanan as a botanist and draughtsman for his survey of Otago and the West Coast of the South Island.[1][2]

When the Geological Survey and Colonial Museum (now the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa) was established in Wellington in 1865 with Hector as its director, Buchanan was employed[2] in the same role he had in the earlier survey.[1] During the next 20 years, Buchanan took botanical and geological field trips all over New Zealand,[1] and surveyed the plants growing in the Wellington Botanic Garden.[2] From 1868 he was a full-time draughtsman and illustrator, drawing and/or lithographing many of the illustrations for the Transactions of the New Zealand Institute and the Reports of Geological Exploration.[4] Buchanan never married and was a prodigious worker, often being at the museum until late at night.[4]

He retired in June 1885 with a year's leave on full pay, officially starting his retirement in June 1886.[3] He returned to his home in Dunedin on retirement, and died on 18 October 1898.[1]

Works

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Buchanan had some 29 publications in the Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand, including his identification of new species.

Artworks

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  • Contributed woodcuts to Walter Buller's Manual of New Zealand Birds
  • Contributed scientific illustrations to Frederick Hutton's Fishes of New Zealand
The standard author abbreviation Buchanan is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.[5]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Adams, Nancy M. "Buchanan, John". Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Ministry for Culture and Heritage. Retrieved 16 July 2024.
  2. ^ a b c d e f Buchanan, P. K.; Cooper, Jerry A. (2020). "John Buchanan's pre-1880 records and illustrations of New Zealand fungi". Records of the Auckland Museum. 55: 29–36. doi:10.32912/RAM.2020.55.3. ISSN 1174-9202. JSTOR 27008991. Wikidata Q106827962.
  3. ^ a b c Adams, Nancy M. (1 January 2002). "John Buchanan F.L.S. botanist and artist (1819–1898)". Tuhinga: Records of the Museum of New Zealand te Papa Tongarewa. 13: 73.
  4. ^ a b Nathan, Simon (2019). "John Buchanan (1819–1898): New Zealand's first scientific illustrator". Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand. 49 (4): 508–516. Bibcode:2019JRSNZ..49..508N. doi:10.1080/03036758.2019.1656261.
  5. ^ International Plant Names Index.  Buchanan.
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