William Morrison was a Scottish-born gardener and plant collector employed by Kew between 1824 to 1839.

Morrison made collections of botanical specimens in Trinidad

Trinidad

Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands and numerous landforms which make up the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago. It is the southernmost island in the Caribbean and lies just off the northeastern coast of Venezuela. With an area of it is also the fifth largest in...

, returning them to England for study at Kew Gardens. He accompanied James Stirling

James Stirling (Australian governor)

Admiral Sir James Stirling RN was a British naval officer and colonial administrator. His enthusiasm and persistence persuaded the British Government to establish the Swan River Colony and he became the first Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Western Australia...

 to the Swan River Colony

Swan River Colony

The Swan River Colony was a British settlement established in 1829 on the Swan River, in Western Australia. The name was a pars pro toto for Western Australia. In 1832, the colony was officially renamed Western Australia, when the colony's founding Lieutenant-Governor, Captain James Stirling,...

 and gathered material for the Proteaceae

Proteaceae

Proteaceae is a family of flowering plants distributed in the Southern Hemisphere. The family comprises about 80 genera with about 1600 species. Together with the Platanaceae and Nelumbonaceae they make up the order Proteales. Well known genera include Protea, Banksia, Embothrium, Grevillea,...

 found in the same institution's herbarium.

Notices on Morrison's collections were published by Kew in 1880 and 1891,

"In founding Swan River Colony in 1828, Capt. Stirling, the Governor, took with him William Morrison, a gardener, who became a seed collector,and forwarded collections to this country for sale"

Morrison's name is associated with the common names of many verticordia

Verticordia

Verticordia, a genus of the Myrtaceae family, are woody shrubs with small and exquisite flowers. They are mostly found in Southwest Australia, with several outlier species in northern regions. A revision of the genus in 1991 produced a classification within Verticordia of 3 subgenera, 24 sections,...

s, initially given to his early collection of Verticordia nitens

Verticordia nitens

Verticordia nitens is an upright shrub, 0.45 to 1.8 metres tall, with glistening and perfumed flower heads that appear between October and February in Southwest Australia...

. Morrison's featherflower was thought to have been named for Alexander Morrison, a Scottish surgeon of the colony, though it was shown by Rica Erickson

Rica Erickson

Frederica Lucy "Rica" Erickson AM, née Sandilands, was an Australian naturalist, botanical artist, historian, author and teacher. Without any formal scientific training, she wrote extensively on botany and birds, as well as genealogy and general history...

 that a Captain Seymour Meares, collecting for James Mangles, had used this label when he was unable to recall its scientific name.