William Houstoun (1695–1733) was a Scottish surgeon and botanist who retrieved plants from Mexico and South America.
He was born in Houston, Renfrewshire. He began a degree course in medicine at St Andrew's University but completed his medical training at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands in 1729 where he became interested in medicinal uses for newly discovered plants. To further study them he made an extended journey to the Caribbean, Mexico, and the Americas. He provided plant samples and specimens to other scientists in London, and published accounts of his studies in Catalogus plantarum horti regii Parisiensis.
When he returned to London in 1731, the trustees for the Province of Georgia agreed to help finance another trip, having Houstoun help stock the Trustee's Garden planned for Savannah, Georgia. He journeyed to the Madeira Islands to gather grape plantings, then crossed the Atlantic but never finished his mission, since he died in Jamaica in 1733.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in January, 1833.[1]