Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Davies, Hugh
DAVIES, HUGH (1739?–1821), botanist, was born in Anglesey, and having been educated at Peterhouse, Cambridge, took orders and became rector of Aber in Carnarvonshire. In 1790 the second edition of Pennant's ‘Indian Zoology’ was published, all of which, except the insects, was edited by Davies. A folio edition of this work, under the title ‘Faunula Indica,’ appeared in 1795. In 1790 Davies became a fellow of the Linnean Society, and he contributed Welsh plants to Hudson's ‘Flora Anglica,’ Smith's ‘Flora Britannica,’ and to ‘English Botany.’ In 1792 he spent some time in London with his friend Hudson; and he seems to have devoted considerable attention to cryptogamic plants, contributing a paper on ‘Four British Lichens’ to the second volume of the Linnean Society's ‘Transactions.’ Previous to 1813, ‘a constitutional nervous sensibility’ having rendered him unequal to the duties of his profession (Preface, Welsh Botanology), he retired to Beaumaris and devoted himself to the preparation of a catalogue of Anglesey plants, and of the ‘British,’ i.e. Welsh, names of plants. This appeared as ‘Welsh Botanology,’ 8vo, pp. xvi and 255, in 1813, dealing with both flowering and cryptogamic plants. It is largely quoted by De Candolle in his ‘Géographie Botanique.’ Davies died 16 Feb. 1821. His herbarium is now in the British Museum, and his services to botany were commemorated by Smith in the genus Daviesia.