Robert Wight, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

Robert Wight

Scottish botanist

Date of Birth: 06-Jul-1796

Place of Birth: East Lothian, Scotland, United Kingdom

Date of Death: 26-May-1872

Profession: surgeon, botanist

Nationality: United Kingdom

Zodiac Sign: Cancer

Robert Wight MD FRS FLS (6 July 1796 – 26 May 1872) was a Scottish surgeon in the East India Company, whose professional career was spent entirely in southern India, where his greatest achievements were in botany – as an economic botanist and leading taxonomist in south India.
He contributed to the introduction of American cotton.
As a taxonomist he described 110 new genera and 1267 new species of flowering plants.
He employed Indian botanical artists to illustrate a large number of plants collected by himself and Indian collectors he trained.
Some of these illustrations were published William Hooker in Britain, but from 1838 published a series of illustrated works in Madras including the uncoloured, six-volume Icones Plantarum Indiae Orientalis (1838–53) and two hand-coloured, two-volume works, the Illustrations of Indian Botany (1838–50) and Spicilegium Neilgherrense (1845–51).
By the time he retired from India in 1853 he had published 2464 illustrations of Indian plants.



Alternative names	Sir Daniel Macnée; Sir Daniel MacNee; Sir Macnee; Sir Daniel Macnee; Daniel, Sir MacNee; Macnee
Description	Scottish portrait painter
Date of birth/death	4 June 1806	17 January 1882
Location of birth/death	Fintry, Stirlingshire	Edinburgh
Authority control	: Q1161629 VIAF: 95715394 ISNI: 0000 0000 6791 7834 ULAN: 500005662 Oxford Dict.: 17710 RKD: 51821