James Sykes Gamble CIE FRS FLS (2 July 1847 – 16 October 1925) was an English botanist who specialized in the flora of the Indian sub-continent; he became Director of the British Imperial Forest School at Dehradun, and a Fellow of the Royal Society.

Gamble later studied at the École nationale des eaux et forêts, Nancy (1869-1871) where he gained an interest in taxonomy.

In 1879 he moved back to Calcutta and travelled around the Sunderbans, Chota Nagpore, Santal Parganas and Orissa regions.

After his retirement Gamble also collected at the Cape of Good Hope in 1890 and from Switzerland, Italy, Sardinia, Malta, Gibraltar and South Norway.

He also made use of the specimens in the Madras Herbarium at Kew presented by Sir Alfred Gibbs and Lady Bourne.

Fischer..[6] Gamble retired to the UK in 1899, settling at Highfield, Liss, Hampshire, where he planted 72 acres with exotic trees, using many of the seeds he had collected.

[1] In 1879, botanist C.B.Clarke published Gamblea, a genus of plants of the family Araliaceae, from Indo-China, and named in Gamble's honour.