James Dickson (botanist)

{{Short description|Scottish nurseryman and naturalist (1738–1822)}} {{redirect|Dicks.|other uses|Dicks (disambiguation){{!}}Dicks}} {{Use dmy dates|date=March 2022}} {{Infobox person |name = James Dickson |image = James Dickson.jpg |caption = James Dickson, 1820 engraving |birth_date = 1738 |birth_place = Kirke House, Traquair, Peeblesshire |death_date = 14 August 1822 |death_place = Broad Green, Croydon, Surrey |occupation = Nurseryman, plant collector, botanist and mycologist }} '''James''' ('''Jacobus''') '''J. Dickson''' (1738–1822) was a Scottish nurseryman, plant collector, botanist and mycologist. Between 1785 and 1801 he published his ''Fasciculus plantarum cryptogamicarum Britanniae'', a four-volume work in which he published over 400 species of algae and fungi that occur in the British Isles<ref>''Jacobi Dickson Fasciculus (-fasciculus quartus) plantarum Cryptogamicarum Britanniæ''. MS. notes. 4 fasc. pl. XII. Prostant venales apud auctorem; G. Nicol: Londini, 1785-1801. 4º. (2 copies in the British Library)</ref> He is also the editor of the exsiccata work ''Hortus siccus Britannicus, being a collection of dried British plants, named on the authority of the Linnean herbarium and other original collections'' (1793–1802).<ref>{{cite web |title=Hortus siccus Britannicus, being a collection of dried British plants, named on the authority of the Linnean herbarium and other original collections: IndExs ExsiccataID=474077701 |website=IndExs – Index of Exsiccatae |publisher=Botanische Staatssammlung München |url=https://www.botanischestaatssammlung.de/DatabaseClients/IndExs/Exsiccatae_IndExs_Details.jsp?ExsiccataID=474077701 |access-date=18 October 2024}}</ref>

The plant genus ''Dicksonia'' is named after him.

==Life== He was born at Kirke House, Traquair, Peeblesshire, of poor parents, and began life in the gardens of the Earl of Traquair. While still young he went to Jeffery's nursery-garden at Brompton, and in 1772 started in business for himself in Covent Garden.<ref name=DNB>{{cite DNB|wstitle=Dickson, James}}</ref>

Dickson made several tours in the Scottish Highlands in search of plants between 1785 and 1791, that of 1789 being in company with Mungo Park, whose sister became his second wife.<ref name=DNB/>

Dickson in 1788 became one of the original members of the Linnean Society, and in 1804 was one of the eight original members and a vice-president of the Horticultural Society. He died at Broad Green, Croydon, Surrey, on 14 August 1822, his wife, a son, and two daughters surviving him. His portrait by Henry Perronet Briggs (1820) was lithographed.<ref name=DNB/>

==Works== Sir Joseph Banks threw open his library to him, and he acquired a wide knowledge of botany, and especially of cryptogamic plants. He published:<ref name=DNB/>

* between 1785 and 1801 four ''Fasciculi Plantarum Cryptogamicarum Britanniæ'', containing in all four hundred descriptions; * between 1789 and 1799, ''A Collection of Dried Plants, named on the authority of the Linnæan Herbarium'', in seventeen folio fascicles, each containing twenty-five species; * in 1795, a ''Catalogus Plantarum Cryptogamicarum Britanniæ''; * and between 1793 and 1802, his ''Hortus Siccus Britannicus'', in nineteen folio fascicles.

He wrote memoirs in the 'Transactions of the Linnean Society. James Edward Smith wrote him an epitaph and Charles Louis L'Héritier de Brutelle dedicated to him the genus ''Dicksonia'', among the tree-ferns.<ref name=DNB/>

==References== {{Reflist}}

==External links== * [http://www.scottish-places.info/people/famousfirst3157.html Overview of James Dickson]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dickson, James}} Category:Scottish botanical writers Category:Scottish horticulturists Category:Scottish mycologists Category:1738 births Category:1822 deaths Category:Nurserymen Category:Scottish plant collectors Category:Scottish gardeners Category:Fellows of the Linnean Society of London Category:People from the Scottish Borders Category:People from Perth, Scotland Category:18th-century Scottish botanists Category:19th-century Scottish botanists Category:18th-century Scottish businesspeople Category:19th-century Scottish businesspeople