George Maxwell was a professional collector of plants and insects in Southwest Australia

Southwest Australia

Southwest Australia is a biodiversity hotspot that includes the Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub ecoregions of Western Australia. The region has a wet-winter, dry-summer Mediterranean climate, one of five such regions in the world...

. The botanical specimens he obtained were used to make formal descriptions of the region's plant species.

He was born in England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 in 1804 and moved to Western Australia

Western Australia

Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...

 in 1840 to settle at King George Sound

King George Sound

King George Sound is the name of a sound on the south coast of Western Australia. Located at , it is the site of the city of Albany.The sound covers an area of and varies in depth from to ....

, remaining there until his death at Middleton Beach in 1880. Maxwell occupied himself a number of activities, selling curios and offering to guide visitors to the port. He began collecting plants and insects of the region, assisting the botanist James Drummond

James Drummond (botanist)

James Drummond was a botanist and naturalist who was an early settler in Western Australia.-Early life:...

 in 1846. The collections he made, in the company of Drummond and Ferdinand von Mueller

Ferdinand von Mueller

Baron Sir Ferdinand Jacob Heinrich von Mueller, KCMG was a German-Australian physician, geographer, and most notably, a botanist.-Early life:...

, would provide type specimens for the publication of scientific descriptions. Maxwell's collections are now preserved in Australian herbarium, his contribution to the botanical knowledge of the region and Flora Australiensis

Flora Australiensis

Flora Australiensis: a description of the plants of the Australian Territory, more commonly referred to as Flora Australiensis, and also known by its standard abbreviation Fl. Austral., is a seven-volume flora of Australia published between 1863 and 1878 by George Bentham, with the assistance of...

was noted by Mueller in the Gardeners' Chronicle

The Gardeners' Chronicle

The Gardeners' Chronicle was a British horticulture periodical. It lasted as a title in its own right for nearly 150 years and is still extant as part of the magazine Horticulture Week....

;

Only two years ago I made long journeys with him over rough country for several days on horseback to collect plants and seeds. More than 30 years ago he conducted Drummond through the Stirling Ranges in the journey that proved so memorable in the discovery of many splendid plants. He was nearly always in the bush, and engaged in collecting seeds, botanical and entomological specimens. Encouraged by myself, he undertook several extensive journeys over then untrodden ground, eastward as far as the Great Bight, and thus found many new plants and enabled us to extend the known limits of the range of many rare species, as recorded in the Flora Australiensis.

The expedition with Drummond began in the Stirling Ranges in 1846, continuing on to Cape Riche and Mt Barren. The specimens obtained on their journey became known as Drummond's fourth collection, many of which are referenced in published descriptions of the region's species.

The following species were named by Mueller and Jeremy Bentham

Jeremy Bentham

Jeremy Bentham was an English jurist, philosopher, and legal and social reformer. He became a leading theorist in Anglo-American philosophy of law, and a political radical whose ideas influenced the development of welfarism...

 in recognition of this collector:

• Eriostemon maxwelli
• Genosiris maxwelli, transferred to Patersonia maxwellii
  Patersonia maxwellii
  Patersonia maxwellii is a perennial herbaceous plant that is endemic to Southwest Australia, occurring in the Jarrah Forest and Esperance Plains regions. The flowers are violet or blue and appear between September and November. The height is 0.2 – 0.3 metres. It is found on white sand in seasonally...
  
  
• Lasiopetalum maxwellii
  Lasiopetalum maxwellii
  Lasiopetalum maxwellii is a species of shrub which is endemic to the Esperance Plains of Western Australia. The flowers appear spring and late summer, these are cream or white. It has a sprawing habit, reaching heights between 0.25 – 0.6 metres, and occurs on sandy soils of granitic slopes...
  
  
• Phymatocarpus maxwellii
• Pimelea maxwelli (Pimelea brevifolia subsp. brevifolia)
• Poa maxwelli (Poa serpentum)

Further reading

• A.E.Orchard (1999) A History of Systematic Botany in Australia, in Flora of Australia Vol.1, 2nd ed., ABRS.
• Maiden, J.H. (1909) Records of Western Australian Botanists. Journal of the West Australian Natural History Society. 2(6):5-33
• David Morrison, Alex George (2004) Plate 492. Lechenaultia acutiloba Goodeniaceae Curtis's Botanical Magazine
  Curtis's Botanical Magazine
  The Botanical Magazine; or Flower-Garden Displayed, is an illustrated publication which began in 1787. The longest running botanical magazine, it is widely referred to by the subsequent name Curtis's Botanical Magazine....
  
  21 (2) , 111–113