John Dallachy (1804–71): from gardener to botanical collector

Abstract

The citation ‘Rockingham Bay, J. Dallachy’ is prominent in late nineteenth-century taxonomic publications associated with the flora of tropical Queensland. John Dallachy (1804–71) was employed as a botanical collector by the Melbourne Botanic Garden under the directorship of Baron Ferdinand von Mueller. Between 1864 and 1871, Dallachy resided in the Rockingham Bay area where he collected ~3500 botanical specimens of which ~400 were described as new taxa of flowering plants, ferns, fungi and bryophytes, making him Mueller’s most prolific collector of type specimens, apart from Mueller himself. In this, the first of two articles about Dallachy, we outline the origin, and development of this successful botanical collaboration, identifying the experiences and qualities that prompted Dallachy to become a botanical collector, the friendship that formed between Mueller and Dallachy in the face of Dallachy’s reversal of fortunes at the Melbourne Botanic Garden, and the circumstances that led to Dallachy and Mueller’s shared project to investigate the botanical riches of the floristically diverse Wet Tropics Bioregion.