Thomas Lobb

Thomas Lobb (1817–1894) was a British botanist and, along with his older brother, William Lobb, collected plants for the plant nursery Veitch.

Lobb worked in India, Indonesia and the Philippines. In 1845 he discovered the first orchid species of the genus Phalaenopsis growing in the eastern Himalayas, at an altitude of ~1,500 m (4,900 ft). This plant, Phalaenopsis lobbii, is named in his honour.

He was born and raised in Perranarworthal and Egloshayle, near Wadebridge where his father John worked as an estate carpenter at Pencarrow and gamekeeper at Carclew estate, for Sir Charles Lemon. Both brothers, despite varying accounts (neither wrote an autobiography), worked in the stovehouse. Both brothers were encouraged in study of horticulture and botany. Thomas moved to join the Veitch family at Killerton in 1830, aged 13. The Veitch Nurseries moved to Exeter in 1832 and Thomas suggested his brother William as the nursery's first plant hunter in 1840.

Thomas' first collecting trip, inspired by the success of his brother William Lobb, was from 1843 to 1847, collecting in Java as well as visiting rainforests in Singapore, Penang and Malaysia.

After a rest period working back at the Veitch Nurseries and after seeing William again for the first time since 1840, a second collecting trip took place from 25 December 1848 to 1853. This visited India, Sarawak, Philippines and Burma, India and Nepal. During this visit he briefly met up with Sir Joseph Hooker who was on a collecting expedition in the Khasi Hills.

His brother William returned to America in 1854, finished working for Veitch in 1860 and died in San Francisco in 1864.

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