Murray Ross Henderson (1899–1982) was a

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

botanist who did most of his botanical work in the

Straits Settlements The Straits Settlements () were a group of British territories located in Southeast Asia. Originally established in 1826 as part of the territories controlled by the British East India Company, the Straits Settlements came under control of the ...

and

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

. He took a position as a botanist in Malaya in 1921 and became curator of the

herbarium A herbarium (plural: herbaria) is a collection of preserved plant biological specimen, specimens and associated data used for scientific study. The specimens may be whole plants or plant parts; these will usually be in dried form mounted on a sh ...

in the

Singapore Botanical Gardens The Singapore Botanic Gardens is a -year-old tropical garden located at the fringe of the Orchard Road shopping district in Singapore. It is one of three gardens, and the only tropical garden, to be honoured as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Th ...

in 1924. On the invasion of

British Malaya The term "British Malaya" (; ) loosely describes a set of states on the Malay Peninsula and the island of Singapore that were brought under British Empire, British hegemony or control between the late 18th and the mid-20th century. Unlike the ...

by Japan in World War II, Henderson escaped from Singapore to

Sumatra Sumatra () is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the list of islands by area, sixth-largest island in the world at 482,286.55 km2 (182,812 mi. ...

. He travelled from there via

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in South Africa, where he continued to do botanical work at the Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden for the remainder of the war. He returned to Singapore in 1946 and was appointed acting Director of the Singapore Botanic Gardens. He was Director of the Gardens from 1949 to 1954 when he retired to Aberdeen. M. R. Henderson graduated in botany from the University of Aberdeen. He was elected a Fellow 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 ...

in 1922. He authored a number of floras and other botanical texts including the 3 volume "Malayan Wild Flowers" and "Malayan Orchid Hybrids" (editor). He was honoured in 1998, with the naming of plant species from Malaya after him, '' Emarhendia''.

References

External links

List of species named by M R Henderson
{{DEFAULTSORT:Henderson, M R, George Scottish expatriates in Singapore 1899 births 1982 deaths Botanists with author abbreviations 20th-century Scottish botanists Alumni of the University of Aberdeen Place of birth missing

References

Further reading

External links