Giles Munby

Giles Munby (1813–1876) was an English botanist. His major work concerned plants in North Africa, where he lived for 15 years.

Life Born at York, was the youngest son of Joseph Munby, a solicitor and under-sheriff of Yorkshire, but was orphaned when still very young. On leaving school Munby was apprenticed to a surgeon named Brown in York, and was involved in attending to the poor during the cholera epidemic of 1832. Entering the medical school of the University of Edinburgh, he attended the botanical lectures and excursions held by Robert Graham.

Munby then "walked the hospitals" in London and, in 1835, in Paris, where he began a lifelong friendship with John Percy. Together they studied under Adrien-Henri de Jussieu and his assistants, Jean Baptiste Antoine Guillemin and Joseph Decaisne, and Munby passed the examinations for the degree of M.D. at the University of Montpellier. They visited Dijon and, after returning to Edinburgh, started once more, in 1836, for the south of France. , and on his death his herbarium was presented to Kew Gardens.The name Munbya was given to two genera of plants, both later merged into others. Arthur Munby was the son of his brother Joseph.