Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Davall, Edmund
DAVALL, EDMUND (1763–1798), botanist, was born in 1763 in England, but his mother being Swiss he returned with her to Switzerland on the death of his father in 1788, and took up his residence at Orbe, Canton de Berne. About this time he first became interested in botany, making the acquaintance of Edward Forster and of James Edward Smith, and becoming one of the original fellows of the Linnean Society. In November 1789 he married a Swiss lady named De Cottens, by whom he had a daughter, who died in infancy, and a son, born 25 March 1793. Davall himself died on 26 Sept. 1798, leaving an unfinished work on the Swiss Flora, and his name was perpetuated in the genus of ferns, Davallia, by his constant correspondent, Sir J. E. Smith.
[Memoir and Correspondence of Sir James Edward Smith, ii.; Rees's Cyclopædia, under ‘Davallia.’]