Charles Curtis (botanist)

Charles Curtis (1853 – 23 August 1928) was an English botanist who was sent by James Veitch & Sons to search for new plant species in Madagascar, Borneo, Sumatra, Java and the Moluccas, before settling in Penang, where he became the first superintendent of the Penang Botanic Gardens.

Curtis was born in Barnstaple, Devon, the youngest of four brothers. His paternal grandfather, a Norman by the name of Courtois, had settled at Barnstaple many years previously. Like his brothers, Curtis worked as a garden boy at the local Bale's Nursery. On completing his education, Curtis joined James Veitch & Sons' Royal Exotic Nursery at Chelsea, London in 1874, where he received his botanical training in the "New Plant Department".

In 1878, Harry Veitch despatched him to Mauritius and Madagascar, from where he sent seeds of Nepenthes madagascariensis, a species of pitcher plant, and various other tropical plants, including Angraecum sesquipedale. Unfortunately, following "treachery" by one of the African helpers, who cut the rope which held the raft on which the plants were being floated downriver, the first consignment of plants collected was lost and, as a result, the collecting work had to be repeated.

Curtis returned to England in 1879, but a year later was sent to the Dutch East Indies, where he explored Borneo, Sumatra, Java and the Moluccas. Veitch instructed him to collect specimens of Nepenthes northiana, which had been discovered by Marianne North in Borneo, although the precise locality where the plant grew was unknown. On the trip to Borneo, Curtis was accompanied by a young gardener, David Burke, who later became a plant collector himself. The search for the elusive pitcher plant was unsuccessful, but the pair discovered many other species, including many interesting stove (hot-house) plants, palms, and orchids. At the end of the trip, Curtis accompanied Burke to Singapore, from where Burke returned to England with the collection of plants, including large consignments of the slipper orchids, Paphiopedilum stonei and P. lowii, as well as many Vandas, Rhododendrons, and the beautiful foliage plant for British hot-houses, Leea amabilis.

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