John Ray Biography - British naturalist and botanist

John Ray Biography - British naturalist and botanist

John Ray or Wray (November 29, 1627 in the village of Black Notley, near Braintree (Essex) - January 17, 1705 in Black Notley) was an English naturalist, sometimes called the father of British natural history. Until 1670, he signed as John Wray and thereafter used "Ray" after verifying that this was the form his family had used before him. Contrary to other naturalists of his time, he was not a doctor. Therefore he was not interested in plants for pharmacological reasons but for more scientific reasons. Ray is considered to be the founder of modern botany.

The son of a poor blacksmith, he had the opportunity to study at Cambridge. As no botany courses were held there, he studied this discipline on his own.

In 1660, he appeared anonymously, a work on the flora around Cambridge (Catalogus stirpium circa Cantabrigiam nascentium) where he recorded the first observations of it. Each time he approached a new species, he provided information on its habitat, morphological description, flowering, and therapeutic indications. The play was a great success.

In 1670, he published Catalogus plantarum Angliæ et insularum adjacentium, the first work on English flora. This work was the result of numerous plant collection activities throughout the country. Some of his species were grown in his Cambridge garden.

He planned the publication of a European flora and made trips to Europe. He began to publish in 1686 Historia plantarum generalis, the first attempt at a world flora. Ray added to the European species the plants that were sent to him by European explorers.

Ray attempted a first natural classification of plants and expounded his method in three works: Methodus plantarum nova (1682), the first volume of Historia plantarum (1686), and in Methodus emendata (1703).

He clearly separated monocots from dicots, probably inspired by Theophrastus, and gymnosperms from angiosperms. He also separated the non-flowering plants from the flowering plants.

Thanks to him, the botanical vocabulary was considerably enriched. Terms such as cotyledon or pollen are due to him. He also used the vocabulary of Marcello Malpighi, Karl Sigismund Kunth or Nehemiah Grew.

John Ray also attempted a rough classification of the various kinds of mushrooms.

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