Stuart, Charles (1802 - 1877)

Born in England in 1802, died in Gosford, New South Wales, on 28 July 1877.

A gardener and collector, who is known to have been in Adelaide, South Australia, in 1847, where he met Ferdinand Mueller.

He worked as a nurseryman/gardener and collected in Tasmania (1842 until about 1852), mainly at Perth, on the east coast and at Mt La Perouse. He sent most of his collections to Mueller at Adelaide, and these subsequently went with Mueller to MEL.

He also collected algae for W.H.Harvey.

Stuart left Tasmania about April 1852. He apparently returned for a time in about 1855-1857 (collections from Southport and La Perouse).

Bentham (and Maiden, 1908a) noted that he later collected in the New England region of north-eastern New South Wales, where he was a gardener on a property near Tenterfield.

Some of Stuart's Tasmanian collection became 'mixed' with those of Gunn and ended up in K. His New England collections went to Mueller (MEL) and some to Hooker (K). A few duplicates are in BM and HO, others in CN, E, FI, KIEL, LE, M, MANCH, O, TCD and W.

Richard Aitken notes, in his entry for Stuart in the 'The Oxford Companion to Australian Gardens', that:

"After a decade-long correspendence and friendship Mueller learnt some 'unfavourable episodes' of his history and requested Bentham not to publish any notes on Stuart in Flora Australiensis (but Mueller later spoke with concern for his colleague's welfare)."

Sources: Extracted from: A.E.Orchard (1999) A History of Systematic Botany in Australia, in Flora of Australia Vol.1 2nd ed., ABRS.
Aitken & Looker (eds.) 'The Oxford Companion to Australian Gardens', 2002, Melbourne, p.575

Collecting localities for 'Stuart, C. (filtered by dates)' from AVH (2025)

Data from 7,720 specimens