Alexander Anderson was a Scottish surgeon and botanist.

Anderson studied at Edinburgh University. Fellow Aberdonian William Forsyth briefly employed him at the Chelsea Physic Garden

Chelsea Physic Garden

The Chelsea Physic Garden was established as the Apothecaries’ Garden in London, England in 1673. It is the second oldest botanical garden in Britain, after the University of Oxford Botanic Garden, which was founded in 1621.Its rock garden is the oldest English garden devoted to alpine plants...

 in London, prior to Anderson's emigration to New York in 1774, where he stayed with his brother John, a printer.

He was appointed in 1785 superintendent of the government botanic garden at St. Vincent, where he showed much activity. He was a correspondent of Sir Joseph Banks

Joseph Banks

Sir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet, GCB, PRS was an English naturalist, botanist and patron of the natural sciences. He took part in Captain James Cook's first great voyage . Banks is credited with the introduction to the Western world of eucalyptus, acacia, mimosa and the genus named after him,...

, through whom he contributed to the Royal Society in 1789 an account of a bituminous lake in St. Vincent

Saint Vincent (island)

Saint Vincent is a volcanic island in the Caribbean. It is the largest island of the chain called Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. It is located in the Caribbean Sea, between Saint Lucia and Grenada. It is composed of partially submerged volcanic mountains...

, which was afterwards published in the Philosophical Transactions for that year.

In January 1791 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh

Royal Society of Edinburgh

The Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity, operating on a wholly independent and non-party-political basis and providing public benefit throughout Scotland...

, proposed by Daniel Rutherford

Daniel Rutherford

Daniel Rutherford was a Scottish physician, chemist and botanist who is most famous for the isolation of nitrogen in 1772.Rutherford was the uncle of the novelist Sir Walter Scott.-Early life:...

, John Walker

John Walker (naturalist)

John Walker was a Scottish minister and natural historian. He was Professor of Natural History at the University of Edinburgh from 1779 to 1803....

 and William Wright

William Wright (botanist)

William Wright was a Scottish physician and botanist.Born in March 1735 in Crieff, Perthshire, he studied at Crieff Grammar School and the University of Edinburgh, and obtained a medical degree at St. Andrews . He served as an apprentice with G Dennistoun in Falkirk , and became a navy surgeon in...

. In the same year he went into Guiana

The Guianas

The Guyanas or the Guianas refers to a region in north-eastern South America which includes the following three territories:* French Guiana, an overseas department of France;...

 on a botanising expedition; the plants he obtained being sent to Banks, are now in the herbarium of the British Museum

British Museum

The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...

.

The Society of Arts voted him a silver medal in 1798 for a paper upon the plants in the garden at St. Vincent. He contemplated the production of a flora of the Caribbean islands, some sheets of which he sent to Banks; but this project was never carried out. He resigned his post in July 1811, and died on 8 September in the same year (the Royal Society of Edinburgh gives his date of death as 10 May 1811).

Anderson was succeeded as superintendent by his friend, the surgeon William Lochhead.