Thomas Edmondston


1825 - 1846

Botanist. Born into a notable family at Buness in Unst, Edmondston was the son of the island's doctor. Educated at home, and later in Edinburgh, he was somewhat of a prodigy, compiling the first known list of Shetland's plants at the age of eleven and producing a Flora of Shetland in 1845. He discovered a number of rare plants, including Edmondston's Chickweed (Cerastium nigrescens). Edmondston was elected to the Chair of Natural History at the Anderson's University in Glasgow at the age of just nineteen, but having been offered the position of naturalist on an expedition to South America on HMS Herald, he was killed accidentally at SĂșa Bay in Ecuador.


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