Botany
John Templeton's interest in botany began with an experimental garden laid out according to a suggestion in Rousseau's 'Nouvelle Heloise' and following Rousseau's 'Letters on the Elements of Botany'. Here he cultivated many tender exotics out of doors and began botanical studies which lasted throughout his life and corresponded with the most eminent botanists in England Sir William Hooker, William Turner, James Sowerby and, especially Sir Joseph Banks, who had travelled on Captain James Cook’s voyages, and in charge of Kew Gardens. Banks tried (unsuccessfully) to tempt him to New Holland (Australia) as a botanist on the Flinders's Expedition with the offer of a large tract of land and a substantial salary. An associate of the Linnean Society, Templeton visited London and saw the botanical work being achieved there. This led to his promotion of the Belfast Botanic Gardens as early as 1809, and to work on a Catalogue of Native Irish Plants, in manuscript form and now in the Royal Irish Academy, which was used as an accurate foundation for later work by succeeding Irish botanists. He also assembled text and executed many beautiful watercolour drawings for a Flora Hibernica, sadly never finished, and kept a detailed Journal during the years 1806-1825 (both now in the Ulster Museum, Belfast). Of the 12000 algal specimens in the Ulster Museum Herbarium about 148 are in the Templeton collection and were mostly collected by him, some were collected by others and passed to Templeton. The specimens in the Templeton collection in the Ulster Museum (BEL) have been catalogued. Those noted in 1967 were numbered: F1 - F48. Others were in The Queen's University Belfast. Queens University Belfast All of Templeton's specimens have now been numbered in the Ulster Museum as follows: F190 - F264; F290 - F314 and F333 - F334. Templeton was the first finder of Rosa hibernica (1795) and in Ireland of Sisymbrium Ligusticum seoticum (1793), Adoxa moschatellina (1820), Orobanche rubra and many other plants.
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