Life and career
George Don was born at Doo Hillock, Forfar, Angus, Scotland on 29 April 1798 to Caroline Clementina Stuart and George Don (b.1756), principal gardener of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh in 1802.[1] Don was the elder brother of David Don, also a botanist. He became foreman of the gardens at Chelsea in 1816. In 1821, he was sent to Brazil, the West Indies and Sierra Leone to collect specimens for the Royal Horticultural Society.[1] Most of his discoveries were published by Joseph Sabine, although Don published several new species from Sierra Leone.
Don's main work was his four volume A General System of Gardening and Botany, published between 1832 and 1838 (often referred to as Gen. Hist., an abbreviation of the alternative title: A General History of the Dichlamydeous Plants). He revised the first supplement to Loudon's Encyclopaedia of Plants, and provided a Linnean arrangement to Loudon's Hortus Britannicus. He also wrote a monograph on the genus Allium (1832) and a review of Combretum. He died at Kensington, London, on 25 February 1856.[1] He is buried in the parish churchyard in the centre of Forfar.
