William Houstoun (occasionally spelt Houston) (1695?–1733) was a Scottish surgeon and botanist who collected plants in the West Indies, New Spain and South America.
He began a degree course in medicine at St Andrew's University but interrupted his studies to visit the West Indies, returning circa 1727.
After returning to England that year, he soon sailed for the Caribbean and the Americas employed as a ship's surgeon for the South Sea Company.
Houstoun initially sailed to the Madeira Islands to gather grape plantings before continuing his voyage across the Atlantic.
[2] Houstoun's writings and plant specimens, now preserved in the botanical department of the British Museum, passed from Miller to Sir Joseph Banks, by whom the manuscripts were published as Reliquiae Houstounianae in 1781.