John Carne Bidwill
| John Carne Bidwill | |
|---|---|
| Born |
5 February 1815 St. Thomas, Exeter, England |
| Died | 16 March 1853 (aged 38) Tinana, Maryborough, Queensland |
| Nationality | British |
| Fields | Botany |
| Institutions | Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney |
| Author abbrev. (botany) | Bidwill |
John Carne Bidwill (5 February 1815 – 16 March 1853) was an English botanist who documented plant life in New Zealand and Australia. He is attributed with the discovery of several Australian plant species.
Bidwill was born at St. Thomas, Exeter, England, the eldest son of Joseph Green Bidwill, a merchant of Exeter and Charlotte, née Carne. He was educated for a commercial life but developed an interest in science, and botany in particular. He sailed to Canada in April 1832 at 17 years of age, returning in November 1834.
In September 1838 John Bidwill arrived in Sydney, Australia, and while waiting for the survey of land that he had been allotted, he joined a commercial firm. He was sent in a schooner to New Zealand, arriving at the Bay of Islands on 5 February 1839. Over the next two months he took a journey into the interior of the North Island collecting botanical and other scientific specimens. He sent the plants he collected to John Lindley, although Lindley never published them. An account of this journey, , was published in London in 1841. He stated that "these rambles were abruptly put an end to by the increasing business of the mercantile firm at Sydney with which I am connected", but he returned to New Zealand in 1840 and spent some time at Port Nicholson and its neighbourhood. In July 1841 he met Joseph Dalton Hooker who, in his Introductory Essay to the Flora of Tasmania, mentions that Bidwill accompanied him "in my excursions round Port Jackson and impressed me deeply with the extent of his knowledge and fertile talents".
Richard Clough considers Bidwill was the first to introduce plant breeding to Australia. Bidwill worked with both native and exotic plants, and in 1843, he released his first hybrid, which was a hybrid between two Australian plants – Hibiscus splendens and H. heterophyllus – which he named ‘Hibiscus Sydneyi’. The hybrid belladonna lilies derived from Amaryllis belladonna and Brunsvigia spp., which are now grown all over the world, were first raised by him in 1841.
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