Robert Brown (botanist, born 1773)

Robert Brown (21 December 1773 – 10 June 1858) was a Scottish botanist and paleobotanist whose major impact on botany came from his early and extensive use of the microscope. He was among the first to describe the cell nucleus and cytoplasmic streaming in detail, and he observed what became known as Brownian motion. His work on plant pollination and fertilization helped clarify the fundamental distinction between gymnosperms and angiosperms, and he conducted some of the earliest research in palynology. In plant taxonomy, he established several plant families still recognized today, and his exploration of Australia alongside Matthew Flinders led to the naming of many Australian plant genera and species. When citing a botanical name, the standard abbreviation R.Br. is used to indicate him as the author.

Brown was born in Montrose, Scotland, in a house that once stood where the Montrose Library now sits. His father, James Brown, was a Scottish Episcopal Church minister whose Jacobite loyalties were so strong that in 1788 he opposed his church’s decision to pledge allegiance to George III. His mother, Helen Brown née Taylor, was the daughter of a Presbyterian minister. Brown attended the local Grammar School (now Montrose Academy) and then Marischal College in Aberdeen, but he left in his fourth year when his family moved to Edinburgh in 1790. His father died late the following year.

He enrolled in medicine at the University of Edinburgh but became more absorbed in botany, attending John Walker’s lectures, making botanical trips into the Scottish Highlands alone or with nurserymen like George Don, and writing meticulous descriptions of the plants he collected. He also corresponded with and collected specimens for William Withering, a leading British botanist. During this period, he discovered a new grass species, *Alopecurus alpinus*, and wrote his first botanical paper, “The botanical history of Angus,” read to the Edinburgh Natural History Society in January 1792 but not published in his lifetime.

Brown left his medical course in 1793. Late in 1794 he joined the Fifeshire Fencibles, and his regiment was soon posted to Ireland. In June 1795 he became Surgeon’s Mate. His regiment saw little action, giving him ample leisure time, which he devoted almost entirely to botany. He found his itinerant life frustrating because it prevented him from building his own library and specimen collection and cut him off from major herbaria and libraries. He developed a strong interest in cryptogams, which became the subject of his first, though unattributed, publication. He corresponded with James Dickson, sending him moss specimens and descriptions by 1796. Dickson included Brown’s descriptions in his *Fasciculi plantarum cryptogamicarum britanniae* with Brown’s permission but without crediting him.

By 1800, Brown was well known among Irish botanists and corresponded with many British and foreign botanists, including Withering, Dickson, James Edward Smith, and José Correia da Serra. He had been nominated to the Linnean Society of London, contributed to Dickson’s *Fasciculi*, was acknowledged in other works, and had an algae species, *Conferva brownii* (now *Aegagropila linnaei*), named after him by Lewis Weston Dillwyn. He had also begun experimenting with microscopy. Still, as an army surgeon in Ireland, he saw little chance of catching the attention of those who could offer him a botanical career.

In 1798, Brown learned that Mungo Park had withdrawn from a proposed expedition into the interior of New Holland (now Australia), leaving a naturalist position open. At Brown’s request, Correia wrote to Joseph Banks, recommending Brown as a replacement, noting that Brown was a “professed naturalist” and “a Scotchman, fit to pursue an object with constance and cold mind.” Brown was not chosen, and the expedition did not proceed as planned, though George Caley was sent to New South Wales as a botanical collector for Banks. In 1800, Matthew Flinders proposed an expedition to Banks to determine whether New Holland was one island or several. Banks approved, and in December 1800 wrote to Brown offering him the naturalist position. Brown accepted at once.

Brown was told to expect to sail at the end of 1800, just weeks after the offer, but a series of delays pushed the departure to July 1801. He spent the intervening time studying Banks’ Australian plant specimens and copying notes and descriptions for use on the voyage. His brief was to collect scientific specimens of all kinds, but he was instructed to prioritize plants, insects, and birds, treating fields like geology as secondary. The scientific staff included the botanical illustrator Ferdinand Bauer; the gardener Peter Good, tasked with collecting live plants and viable seed for Kew Gardens; the miner John Allen, appointed as mineralogist; the landscape artist William Westall; and the astronomer John Crosley, who fell ill on the voyage out and left the ship at the Cape of Good Hope, later replaced in Sydney by James Inman. Brown had authority over Bauer and Good.