Appendix

Evert Jacob van Wachendorff (1702-1758), a Dutch professor of medicine, botany and chemistry at Utrecht University, author of Horti ultrajectini index (1747) and Oratio botanico-medica de plantis (1743) and one of the first directors of the Botanic Gardens of Utrecht. The genus Wachendorfia in the Haemodoraceae was published in 1757 by Dutch botanist and physician Johannes Burman. (PlantzAfrica; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)
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George Wahlenberg of Uppsala (1780-1851), Swedish naturalist. Wahlenberg matriculated at Uppsala University in 1792, received his doctorate in medicine in 1806, was appointed botanices demonstrator in 1814, and professor of medicine and botany in 1829, succeeding Carl Peter Thunberg. He was the last holder of the undivided chair that in the previous century had been held by Linnaeus. Wahlenberg made his main work in the field of plant geography and published, among other things the Flora lapponica (1812) and other works on the plant world of northernmost Sweden. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names) There is also a genus Wahlenbergia in the Rubiaceae family named for Wahlenberg but it does not appear in South Africa.(CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)
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Eric Torsten Selim Wall (1871-1959), plant collector in South Africa, Rhodesia, Uganda, Jamaica, Norway, Spain, Morocco, Tunisia, Canada, the U.S., Argentina, Chile, Columbia, Israel, Syria and Turkey. He travelled with Adolf Hjalmar Frederick Hafström in a car driven by the South African botanist John Phillip Harrison Acocks on their extensive botanical explorations in South Africa and Rhodesia. Dimorphotheca walliana was collected by him at Gordons Bay, South Africa, in 1938. (JSTOR; Gunn & Codd)
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Mr. Albert Edward Walsh (1853-1930) who first collected Agapanthus walshii at the Steenbras Railway Station in 1918. He was born in Britain and emigrated to South Africa in 1877, and became manager of the Port Elizabeth branch of B.G. Lennon Ltd, moved to Cape Town in 1902, inerested in horticulture. (JSTOR; Gunn & Codd)
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Named by British botanist Philip Miller of Chelsea for his friend Sir William Watson (1715–1787), a London physician apothecary, botanist, horticulturist and naturalist, Fellow of the Royal Society, Trustee of the British Museum and member of the Royal College of Physicians. He helped to introduce the ideas of Carl Linnaeus into England. The genus Watsonia in the Iridaceae was published in 1758 by British botanist Philip Miller. I have been unable to confirm the fact (and I only assume it to be the case) that the taxon Gladiolus watsonius is also named for William Watson. It was published in 1784 by Carl Peter Thunberg, which would have been three years before Watson's death. In addition to the genus Watsonia, the journal Watsonia, subtitled "Journal & Proceedings of the Botanical Society of the British Isles" was formed in 1949 and named in his honor, not after as is sometimes stated the British botanist and phrenologist Hewitt Cottrell Watson (1804-1881). He is remembered also for his studies of electricity, especially those conducted with the Leyden jar. He was knighted in 1786 shortly before his death. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Wikipedia)
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Samuel Edward Widdrington (1787-1856) (formerly Samuel Edward Cook), a Royal Navy commander, traveller in Spain, Fellow of the Royal Society, Sheriff of Northumberland, and conifer botanist of the late 1700's and early 1800's, who published Spain and the Spaniards, Sketches in Spain, and a book on European pines. He was among the first to describe scientifically the coniferous species of Spain. The genus Widdringtonia in the Cupressaceae was published in 1842 by Austrian botanist Stephan Friedrich Ladislaus Endlicher. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)
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Karl Ludwig Willdenow (1765-1812), German botanist, plant taxonomist, pharmacist, physician, naturalist, professor of botany at the University of Berlin, professor of natural history at the Berlin Medical-Surgical College, mentor of Alexander von Humboldt who brought him many specimens from South America, and Director of the Berlin Botanical Garden from 1801 until he died in 1812. His herbarium of over 20,000 specimens is still preserved there. He was the author of Florae Berolinensis prodromus (1787), Linnaei species plantarum (1798–1826 in 6 volumes), Anleitung zum Selbststudium der Botanik (1804), and Hortus Berolinensis (1816) among other works. He is considered as one of the founders of phytogeography, the study of plant distribution. The genus Willdenowia in the Restionaceae was published by Carl Peter Thunberg in 1805. A genus in the Rubiaceae which does not appear in southern Africa was also named for him, but Tropicos does not record it currently as a valid taxon. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Wikipedia; Chrono-Biographical Sketches)
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on James Muirhead Williams (1912-2001), South African engineer and amateur botanist who published A Revision of the Genus Leucadendron and helped to create the Fernkloof Nature Reserve above Hermanus. He was also the owner/founder of owner of the Vogelgat Nature Reserve. He is commemorated with Erica ioniana (published in 1993) and possibly also for Indigofera ionii (published in 1987). (Ted Oliver, pers. comm.)
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(1) Graham Williamson (1932- ), dental surgeon born in Zimbabwe, made extensive collections in Zambia and Malawi, particular orchids, author of Orchids of Central Africa (1977) and Richtersveld, The Enchanted Wilderness (2000), commemorated with Nemesia williamsonii. (Gunn & Codd; JSTOR; Biodiversity Explorer);
(2) Thomas Williamson (1807-?), British baker, soldier and plant collector for W.H. Harvey, served in South Africa 1828-1840, commemorated with Amphithalea williamsonii and Indigofera williamsonii. (JSTOR; Gunn & Codd)
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ranz Elfried Wimmer (1881-1961), a Viennese botanist, naturalist and Roman Catholic priest who studied the Lobeliaceae sensu stricto (in the strict sense). The genus Wimmerella in the Campanulaceae was published in 1999 by Spanish botanists Luis Serra and Manuel Benito Crespo and American botanist Thomas G. Lammers. (Hugh Clarke, pers. comm.)
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Nicholas Witsen, Dutch patron of botany. The first woody Iridaceae genus to be described was originally named Antholyza maura by Linnaeus in 1771. The genus Witsenia in the Iridaceae was published in 1782 by Swedish botanist Carl Peter Thunberg. (PlantzAfrica)
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Felix Binns Wright (1907- ), veterinarian, nature conservationist and plant collector in the Drakensberg Mts. (Elsa Pooley)
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Christoph Carl Friedrich von Wurmb (1722 - 1782), botanist, plant collector, Dutch colonial administrator. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)
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