| Administrative History | John Ellis was born around 1710 in Ireland and became a rather unsuccessful merchant in London. However, from 1763 he was King's Agent in West Florida, adding the territory of Dominica from 1770. He took the opportunity to import American seeds and his work on plants earned him a fellowship of the Royal Society in 1754. His most notable publication was on corals, and he was the first person to prove that they were animal rather than vegetable. His botanical descriptions and observations were extremely thorough, and he was admired by Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778). He died in London in 1776. |