John Miers (botanist)

Kensington),[1] knight grand cross of the Order of the Rose,[2] was a British botanist and engineer, best known for his work on the flora of Chile and Argentina.

However, after landing in Buenos Aires his wife came down with childbed fever on the trip across country, and he decided not to continue to Chile, instead starting a study of the local flora, which at that time was largely unresearched.

[4] They built a flour mill, developed plans for a ranch at Quintero, and intended becoming the major supplier of salt beef, biscuits and other supplies to the Navy[4][5] In 1825 he returned to England, and the following year published Travels in Chile and La Plata, the first of several works documenting the plants of South America.

Political instability ended this work in 1831 and he moved to Rio de Janeiro to fulfil a similar contract with the Brazilian government, returning to England in 1838.

[7] Then in 1903, botanist Ignatz Urban published a monotypic genus of flowering plants from South America, in the Burmanniaceae as Miersiella also in John Miers's honour.