David Thomas Gwynne-Vaughan FRSE FLS MRIA (12 March 1871 – 4 September 1915) was a 20th-century Welsh botanist and paleobotanist, specialising in fossilised plants (especially ferns).
He was born on 12 March 1871 at Royston House in Llandovery in Wales, the eldest son of Henry Thomas Gwynne-Vaughan of Cynghordy, and his wife, Elizabeth Thomas.
He was educated at Monmouth School then studied Natural Sciences at Christ's College, Cambridge, graduating in 1893.
[1][2] After a period of his life, traveling overseas visiting exotic locations with a group of young British academics and adventures, among them his second-cousin "Gwyn" Sir Gwynneth de Candia Vaughan son of Arthur Powys-Vaughan and countess Clelia de Candia, daughter of the famous count Mario the Tenor, David spent the year of 1896 in the Amazon rainforest and in the summer of 1897 he took a study trip to Siam and Malaysia.
Along these overseas trips, he acquired extensive botanical data and regional information that eventually became vital to write the research papers that granted him a successful lecturing career, taking postings in renown universities: He died in Reading of tuberculosis on 4 September 1915.