Genus Martynia

For John Martyn (1699–1768), British botanist who also practised as a physician although he never qualified as such. He studied as an apothecaries’ apprentice at Chelsea’s Physic Garden and became secretary of a botanical society that existed for a few years. As a result of his writings and lectures he was appointed professor of botany at Cambridge University in 1732. He produced a flora of the Cambridge area in 1727, but his reputation chiefly rests upon his Historia Plantarum Rariorum (1728–1737) and his translations of Eclogues (1749) and Georgics (1741). He resigned in 1762 in favour of his son Thomas (1735–1825), author of Flora Rustica (Rural Flora) (1792) and gave the university his botanical specimens and books. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1727.