John Dallachy (1804–71): collecting botanical specimens at Rockingham Bay

Abstract

Warning Readers of this article are warned that it may contain terms, descriptions and opinions that are culturally sensitive and/or offensive to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. John Dallachy (1804–71) was employed by Baron Ferdinand von Mueller to collect plants as a pioneer resident of Cardwell, Rockingham Bay, Queensland, 1864–71. Mueller’s longest-serving paid botanical collector, Dallachy was also the most prolific collector of types among Mueller’s large network of collectors. In part, Dallachy’s success can be attributed to his collecting methods and intensive travels around the species-rich Rockingham Bay area. In part, also, Dallachy was indebted to fellow European pioneers for support (which was acknowledged in the eponymy of new taxa), and to local Indigenous and South Sea Islander people. Dallachy managed these relationships in a context of frontier war as local Indigenous people resisted being displaced by European colonists. Nevertheless, Dallachy’s opportunity to work as a full-time professional botanical collector, and the rapidity with which his new specimens were identified and published was, to a large extent, due to Mueller. The partnership with Mueller led to Dallachy contributing ~3500 specimens from Rockingham Bay to the Melbourne Herbarium of which ~400 taxa were considered new to Western science.