David Douglas was one of the most important botanical collectors. Thanks to his heroic and arduous explorations of Western Canada in the nineteenth century - he once walked nearly 10,000 miles between the Pacific coast and Hudson Bay. His substantial legacy, as this definitive biography shows, is the collection and discovery of over 200 species. Not only is the Douglas fir named after him, but also many of our established conifers, like the Sitka spruce, were introduced to Britain by him, as were such staples of the modern-day suburban gardens as lupins, penstemmon and many lilies and primroses.