William McCalla was an Irish

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

 botanist. McCalla collected algae

Algae

Algae are a large and diverse group of simple, typically autotrophic organisms, ranging from unicellular to multicellular forms, such as the giant kelps that grow to 65 meters in length. They are photosynthetic like plants, and "simple" because their tissues are not organized into the many...

 and flowering plant

Flowering plant

The flowering plants , also known as Angiospermae or Magnoliophyta, are the most diverse group of land plants. Angiosperms are seed-producing plants like the gymnosperms and can be distinguished from the gymnosperms by a series of synapomorphies...

s, his records are included in Harvey's Phycologia Britannica. His specimens are in the Ulster Museum

Ulster Museum

The Ulster Museum, located in the Botanic Gardens in Belfast, has around 8,000 square metres of public display space, featuring material from the collections of fine art and applied art, archaeology, ethnography, treasures from the Spanish Armada, local history, numismatics, industrial...

 and Trinity College, Dublin

Trinity College, Dublin

Trinity College, Dublin , formally known as the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, was founded in 1592 by letters patent from Queen Elizabeth I as the "mother of a university", Extracts from Letters Patent of Elizabeth I, 1592: "...we...found and...

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He was the discoverer in 1835 of Erica

Erica

Erica ,the heaths or heathers, is a genus of approximately 860 species of flowering plants in the family Ericaceae. The English common names "heath" and "heather" are shared by some closely related genera of similar appearance....

 mackaiana, which he transmitted to Mackay. This plant is found only in Roundstone

Roundstone

Roundstone may refer to:*Roundstone, County Galway, a village in the Republic of Ireland.*Roundstone, West Sussex, a village in England.*Roundstone Music, an English rock band....

 district (Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

) and the mountains of Castile and Asturia. The seaweed

Seaweed

Seaweed is a loose, colloquial term encompassing macroscopic, multicellular, benthic marine algae. The term includes some members of the red, brown and green algae...

 Cladophora macallana (now referred to as Cladophora lehmanniana (Lindenberg) Kützing) was named after him by William Henry Harvey

William Henry Harvey

William Henry Harvey was an Irish botanist who specialised in algae.- Biography :William Henry Harvey was born at Summerville near Limerick, Ireland, in 1811, the youngest of 11 children. His father Joseph Massey Harvey, was a Quaker and prominent merchant...

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McCalla's algal collection in the Ulster Museum includes two albums with 75 specimens in volume I (museum catalogue numbers: F10368 - F10442) and 50 specimens in volume II (Museum catalogue numbers: F10443 - F10492) along with two lichen

Lichen

Lichens are composite organisms consisting of a symbiotic organism composed of a fungus with a photosynthetic partner , usually either a green alga or cyanobacterium...

 specimens. Many of the algal specimens are from Roundstone Bay, County Galway

County Galway

County Galway is a county in Ireland. It is located in the West Region and is also part of the province of Connacht. It is named after the city of Galway. Galway County Council is the local authority for the county. There are several strongly Irish-speaking areas in the west of the county...

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An account of his life and career is given by Tim Robinson

Tim Robinson

Tim Robinson is an English former cricketer, and current cricket umpire, who played in 29 Tests and 26 ODIs for England from 1984 to 1989....

in Connemara:Listening to the Wind.