David Moore

David Moore (23 April 1808 – 9 June 1879) was a Scottish botanist who served as director of the Irish National Botanic Gardens for over 40 years. Early life David Moore was David Moir born in Dundee, Scotland on 23 April 1808. His parents were Charles, a gardener, and Helen Moir (née Rattray). He was one of 9 children, with 7 surviving to adulthood. He had 5 brothers and one sister. The family changed their name from Moir to Moore in 1830. Moore sometimes went by the name David Muir. He was known to hide his Scottish origins, but not his accent. He received his initial botanical training from conservator of the Dundee Rational Institution Museum, Douglas Gardiner. He then became an apprentice at the Earl of Camperdown near Dundee under the head gardener Mr Howe, later working at James Cunningham's nursery, Edinburgh. Career in Ireland In November 1828 he migrated to Ireland and became foreman and assistant to James Townsend Mackay in the Trinity College Botanic Gardens in Dublin. After the death of Moore's mother in 1832, his brother Charles joined him as an apprentice. While working under Mackay, Moore developed an interest in Irish flora which led him to being appointed to the Ordnance Survey as botanist in 1833. Over the next 4 years, he surveyed Counties Antrim and Londonderry, which lead him to writing his memoir, Ordnance survey of the county of Londonderry (1837). During these surveys he discovered the narrow small-reed Calamagrostis stricta, and the club-sedge Carex buxbaumii, which are now both extinct in the wild. He also recorded a number of other plants in Ireland for the first time. In 1838 he returned to Dublin and was appointed director of the Royal Dublin Society's botanic garden at Glasnevin, County Dublin, succeeding Ninian Niven. Moore remained in this post until his death. In this role, he travelled widely in the United Kingdom and Europe collecting rarer and unusual specimens for the Gardens. He also took specimen donations including many from his brother Charles in Australia. He became an authority on cryptograms, publishing on liverworts and mosses. He developed an interest in orchids, and under his supervision orchids were germinated from seed for the first time in Ireland between 1845 and 1849. During his tenure, he also oversaw the renewal of the Garden's glass houses, and amassed a collection of insectivorous plants.