William Purdom

William Purdom (10 April 1880 – 7 November 1921) was a British plant explorer.

After being apprenticed as a gardener at Brathay Hall in the English Lake district, he traveled to London to
work at the Hugh Low, Enfield Nursery, then onto the Veitch establishment at Coombe Wood.

William Purdom recommended as a plant collector for a joint venture by Veitch and the Arnold Arboretum
of Harvard University to the northern provinces of China in 1909.

Purdom collected and photographed plants for the Arboretum, as well as the great British Nursery firm for
three years 1909- 1911.

In 1914, Purdom and the well-known English horticulturalist, Reginald Farrer, set out on an ambitious
expedition to Qinghai then Tibetan Amdo and the Gansu province of North-west China. Extensive plant
collections were made by the pair through the Minshan Ranges and 'Stony Mountains' in their first season,
followed by explorations in the Datong Mountains just to the north-west of Xining.

Following the expedition, Purdom chose to remain in China and in 1916 was appointed an Inspector of
Forests to the Chinese Government in Beijing, particularly concerning himself with re-afforestation projects.

Purdom collected very many plants new to science and horticulture. Although many of the epithets originally
given in his honour have been superseded, quite a number across a wide spectrum of genera still remain in
use.
Purdom's eponymous species include:
Rhododendron purdomii, Populus purdomii, Ligularia purdomii, Dryopteris purdomii, Gentiana purdomii,
Primula purdomii, Caragana purdomii, Berberis purdomii, Leptodermis purdomii, Astragalus purdomii,
Dracocephalum purdomii.

Botanical records now reveal that it was Purdom who first discovered the peony species, P. fruticosa and P.
rockii; the latter find made more than a decade before the collections made by the explorer Joseph Rock.