Brown  Robert

(21.12.1773 - 10.06. 1857 )

Scottish botanist, morphologist and systematist of plants, discoverer of the “Brownian" motion.

Born in Montrose in Scotland, he studied at Aberdeen, in the University of Edinburgh in the years 1789-1795 studied medicine and botany.

In 1795, Brown enrolled as an ensign and assistant surgeon in the Northern Regiment of the Scottish militia, with whom he was in Ireland. Here he collected local plants and met the botanist Sir Joseph Banks. In love with his work, a zealous young researcher liked a venerable botanist, and according to his recommendation, Brown was appointed a botanist on an expedition sent in 1801 on the ship "Investgeater" led by Captain Flinders to explore the shores of Australia. Brown visited some parts of Australia, Tasmania and Bass Strait Islands, exploring the flora and fauna of these countries. He managed to collect about 4,000 species of Australian plants, a variety of birds and minerals for the Banks collection, and after returning to England in 1805 Brown spent several years putting this rich material in order, which no one has ever brought from distant countries. Banks, appointed by the librarian of his natural history collection, Brown published the work Prodromus florae Novae Hollandiae (Introduction to the flora of New Holland) in London in 1810, which was republished in Nuremberg in 1827 and actually initiated the emergence of a new direction of plant geography - phytogeography. From this new point of view, Brown considered the flora world in his subsequent publications.

Brown also compiled the botany departments in the Ross and Parry dispatches, assisted the surgeon Richardson, who gathered a lot of interesting things while traveling with Franklin; gradually described herbariums collected by other travelers in different regions.

Becoming in 1810 a member of the Royal Society of London, Robert Brown, for ten years headed the Linnaeus Library and extensive collections of his patron Banks, President of the Royal Society of London. In 1820, he became a librarian and curator of the botanical department of the British Museum, where the collections of the latter were transferred after Banks' death. Brown was the best connoisseur of plants.

Being engaged in systematization of plants, Brown strove for the greatest possible simplicity, both in classification and in terminology; he did a great deal to correct the definitions of old families and establish new families. In 1827, he discovered the movement of pollen grains in a liquid, which was later named after him.

In 1849, Brown headed the Linnean Society in London, where he served science until 1853.

Died in London, buried in Kensal Green cemetery.

Cape on the west coast of Fox Bay in northern Canada.