John Martyn (botanist)
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John Martyn (September 12, 1699 - January 29, 1768) was an English botanist.
Martyn's is best known for his Historia plantarum rariorum (1728-1737), and his translation, with valuable agricultural and botanical notes, of the Eclogues (1749) and Georgics (1741) of Virgil. On resigning the botanical chair at Cambridge he presented the university with a number of his botanical specimens and books.
Martyn was born in London. Originally intended for a business career, he abandoned it in favour of medical and botanical studies. He was one of the founders (with Johann Jacob Dillenius and others) and the secretary of a botanical society which met for a few years in the Rainbow Coffee-house, Watling Street; he also started the Grub Street Journal, a weekly satirical review, which lasted from 1730 to 1737.
In 1732 he was appointed professor of botany at Cambridge University, but, finding little encouragement and hampered by lack of appliances, he soon discontinued lecturing. He retained his professorship, however, till 1762, when he resigned in favour of his son Thomas (1735-1825), author of Flora rustica (1792-1794). Although he had not taken a medical degree, he long practised as a physician at Chelsea, where he died.
The standard botanical author abbreviation J.Martyn is applied to species he described.
[edit] References
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
