Spruce, Richard (1817-1893)

English botanist who travelled widely in South America. He studied bryophytes (mosses and liverworts) collecting many new specimens in the Pyrenees.

In 1849, he went to South America, where he spent 15 years studying the Amazon valley. During this time he sent 7,000 specimens back to England. In 1860, he was commissioned by the British government to find Cinchona plants in Ecuador that would be suitable for cultivation in India. These plants were used to produce the quinine required for the treatment of malaria. After exploring the coast of Ecuador and Peru, he retired to Yorkshire 1864, and published Palmae Amazonicae and Hepaticae Amazonicae et Andinae.

Spruce was born in Ganthorpe near Malton, England. He followed his father into teaching, becoming a schoolmaster first at Haxby and then at the Collegiate School of York. His hobby, however, was botany, and he published several papers on bryophytes (mosses and liverworts) and the local flora. When the school was closed 1844, he took up botany as a career. In 1845 and 1846, he travelled in the Pyrenees, collecting large numbers of specimens of bryophytes that had been previously unknown in the area.