Frederick William Burbidge

Frederick William Thomas Burbidge (1847–1905) was a British explorer who collected many rare tropical plants for the famous Veitch Nurseries. Biography Burbidge was born at Wymeswold, Leicestershire, on 21 March 1847, was son of Thomas Burbidge, a farmer and fruit-grower. Burbridge entered the gardens of the Royal Horticultural Society at Chiswick as a student in 1868, and proceeded in the same year to the Royal Gardens, Kew. Here he showed skill as a draughtsman and was partly employed in making drawings of plants in the herbarium. Leaving Kew in 1870, he was on the staff of the Garden from that year until 1877. In 1877 Burbidge was sent by Messrs. Veitch as a collector to Borneo. He was absent two years, during which he also visited Johore, Brunei, and the Sulu Islands. He brought back to Great Britain many remarkable plants, especially: pitcher plants, such as "Nepenthes rajah" and "N. bicalcarata"; orchids, such as "Cypripedium laurenceanum", "Dendrobium burbidgei" and "Aerides burbidgei"; ferns, such as "Alsophila burbidgei" and "Polypodium burbidgei".