Hugh Cuming

Hugh Cuming (14 February 1791 – 10 August 1865) was an English collector who was interested in natural history, particularly in conchology and botany. He has been described as the "Prince of Collectors".

Born in England, he spent a number of years in Chile, where he became a successful businessman. He used the money he saved to buy a ship that was specifically built for collecting specimens, and travelled extensively on collecting trips amassing many thousands of specimens. After his death, much of his material was bought by the Natural History Museum in London. A number of species are named after him.

Early life Cuming was born at Washbrook, West Alvington in Devon to Richard and Mary Cuming, one of three children in a family of modest means. As a child he displayed an avid interest in plants and shells, and through his acquaintance with naturalist George Montagu, his love of natural history was encouraged and developed. At the age of thirteen he was apprenticed to a sailmaker. He met seafaring men who fired his imagination with their stories of remote ports and life at sea. Seeking adventure, in 1819 he shipped out on a voyage to South America, settling in Valparaíso, Chile.

His orchid discoveries were numerous, and he became the first to ship living orchids successfully from Manila to England. A number of orchids bear his name: Coelogyne cumingii, Podochilus cumingii, etc. The tree fern Cibotium cumingii is also named after Cuming.

Cuming is commemorated in the scientific names of five species of Philippine reptiles: Eutropis cumingi, Luperosaurus cumingi, Otosaurus cumingii, Ramphotyphlops cumingii, and Varanus cumingi. Additionally the scientific identifier of a bird, the Scale-feathered Malkoha , endemic to the northern provinces of The Philippines, carries Cuming's name: Dasylophus Cumingi.

After his death In 1866, after Cuming's death on August 10, 1865, the Natural History Museum of London purchased 82,992 of his specimens for £6,000. Many important conchological works were based on this collection, including Reeve's Conchologia Iconica (1843-1878, 20 volumes) and the Sowerby's Thesaurus Conchyliorum (1842-1887, five volumes).

Overall, Cuming collected approximately 130,000 herbarium specimens over his life. Botanical specimens collected by Cuming are held by the Moscow University Herbarium, the National Herbarium of the Netherlands, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, the Missouri Botanical Garden, the Geneva Botanical Garden, Harvard University Herbaria, Copenhagen University Botanical Museum, the New York Botanical Garden, the United States National Herbarium, National Museum of Natural History, France, and the National Herbarium of Victoria Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria.

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