David Don (21 December 1799 – 15 December 1841) was a Scottish botanist,
David Don was born on 21 December 1799 at Doo Hillock, Forfar, Angus, Scotland. He was the younger brother of George Don, also a botanist, their father being George Don of Forfar and his wife Caroline Clementina Stuart. David was Professor of Botany at King's College London from 1836 to 1841, and librarian at the Linnean Society of London from 1822 to 1841.
He described several of the major conifers discovered in the period, including first descriptions of Coast Redwood (Taxodium sempervirens D. Don; now Sequoia sempervirens (D. Don) Endl.), Bristlecone Fir (Pinus bracteata D. Don, now Abies bracteata (D. Don) A. Poit.), Grand Fir (Pinus grandis Douglas ex D. Don; now Abies grandis (Douglas ex D. Don) Lindl.) and Coulter Pine (Pinus coulteri D. Don), and was the first to treat Sugi (Cupressus japonica Thunb.; now Cryptomeria japonica (Thunb.) D. Don) in a new genus.
He also named the orchid genus Pleione in 1825.
David Don was librarian to the botanist Aylmer Bourke Lambert and compiled for him, Prodromus florae nepalensis ... London, J. Gale, 1825, based on collections made by the botanists Francis Hamilton and Nathaniel Wallich of the Calcutta Botanic Garden.
The standard author abbreviation D.Don is used to indicate this individual as the author when citing a botanical name.Famous quotes containing the words david and/or don:
“Literary gentlemen, editors, and critics think that they know how to write, because they have studied grammar and rhetoric; but they are egregiously mistaken. The art of composition is as simple as the discharge of a bullet from a rifle, and its masterpieces imply an infinitely greater force behind them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Don here-and-there, Don epileptic;
Don puffed and empty, Don dyspeptic;
Don middle-class, Don sycophantic,
Don dull, Don brutish, Don pedantic;”
—Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953)