George Samuel Jenman (1845–1902) was a British gardener and

botanist Botany, also called plant science, is the branch of natural science and biology studying plants, especially Plant anatomy, their anatomy, Plant taxonomy, taxonomy, and Plant ecology, ecology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who s ...

. He specialized in growing and studying

plants Plants are the eukaryotes that form the kingdom Plantae; they are predominantly photosynthetic. This means that they obtain their energy from sunlight, using chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with cyanobacteria to produce sugars f ...

. He was superintendent of Castleton Botanical Garden,

Jamaica Jamaica is an island country in the Caribbean Sea and the West Indies. At , it is the third-largest island—after Cuba and Hispaniola—of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean. Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, west of Hispaniola (the is ...

from 1873 to 1879, and Government Botanist and superintendent of the

Botanical Gardens A botanical garden or botanic gardenThe terms ''botanic'' and ''botanical'' and ''garden'' or ''gardens'' are used more-or-less interchangeably, although the word ''botanic'' is generally reserved for the earlier, more traditional gardens. is ...

British Guiana British Guiana was a British colony, part of the mainland British West Indies. It was located on the northern coast of South America. Since 1966 it has been known as the independent nation of Guyana. The first known Europeans to encounter Guia ...

(now

Guyana Guyana, officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the northern coast of South America, part of the historic British West Indies. entry "Guyana" Georgetown, Guyana, Georgetown is the capital of Guyana and is also the co ...

) from 1879 to 1902. Jenman was also a member of the

Linnean Society The Linnean Society of London is a learned society dedicated to the study and dissemination of information concerning natural history, evolution, and taxonomy. It possesses several important biological specimen, manuscript and literature collec ...

Life

George Samuel Jenman was born in

Plymouth Plymouth ( ) is a port city status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Devon, South West England. It is located on Devon's south coast between the rivers River Plym, Plym and River Tamar, Tamar, about southwest of Exeter and ...

in 1845. He trained in gardening and botany at

Kew Gardens Kew Gardens is a botanical garden, botanic garden in southwest London that houses the "largest and most diverse botany, botanical and mycology, mycological collections in the world". Founded in 1759, from the exotic garden at Kew Park, its li ...

. In 1873, Jenman moved to

where he was appointed as superintendent of Castleton Botanical Gardens. During this time he began his work on

fern The ferns (Polypodiopsida or Polypodiophyta) are a group of vascular plants (plants with xylem and phloem) that reproduce via spores and have neither seeds nor flowers. They differ from mosses by being vascular, i.e., having specialized tissue ...

s of the

Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...

, which was his major contribution to the field of botany. In 1879 Jenman moved to

where he was appointed as Government Botanist and Superintendent of the Botanical Gardens. Castellani House, now the home of

's National Art Gallery, was originally designed and built to be his official residence by the

Maltese Maltese may refer to: * Someone or something of, from, or related to Malta * Maltese alphabet * Maltese cuisine * Maltese culture * Maltese language, the Semitic language spoken by Maltese people * Maltese people, people from Malta or of Maltese ...

colonial architect

Cesar Castellani Cesar Castellani (died 2 August 1905) was an architect. He was born in Malta. He was attracted by the prosperity of British Guiana and emigrated there in 1860 with a group of Italian priests. Designs Castellani designed a number of prominent build ...

. Much of his work in British Guiana was focused on the

Sugarcane Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of tall, Perennial plant, perennial grass (in the genus ''Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar Sugar industry, production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with stout, jointed, fib ...

industry. In 1881 he published the ''Handlist of Jamaican Ferns'' and in 1881 he began a series entitled ''The Ferns and Fern Allies of the British West Indies and Guiana'' (1898-1909) which was published by the ''Bulletin of the Royal Botanic Gardens'' in

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger, more populous island of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, the country. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is the southernmost island in ...

. Jenman died before he was able to complete the series, but his work was continued - and the series completed - by his successor, Henry C. Hart. The Curator's clock, and a dedicatory plaque, were installed at the Curator's Lodge in the Botanical Gardens of Guyana in memory of Jenman. In 1897, botanist Wilhelm Wächter published '' Jenmania'', which is a

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

fungi A fungus (: fungi , , , or ; or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and mold (fungus), molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as one ...

within the family

Lichinaceae The Lichinaceae are a family of ascomycete fungi. Most species are lichenized with cyanobacteria, and have a distribution largely in temperate regions. Taxonomy The family was circumscribed in 1854 by Finnish lichenologist William Nylander. H ...

and named in George's honour.

Publications

* ''A Handlist of Jamaican Ferns and their Allies''. Baldwin and Company: Demerara, 1881 * ''The Ferns and Fern Allies of the British West Indies and Guiana''. U. S. Government Printing Office, 1909.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jenman, George Samuel 1845 births 1902 deaths English botanists 19th-century Jamaican people