Sir George Taylor, 15 February 1904 - 12 November 1993

1995 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
pp. 458-469
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
British Museum ◽  
Flowering Plant ◽  
Plant Taxonomy ◽  
Botanic Gardens ◽  
Botany Department ◽  
Long Period ◽  
Ideal Person ◽  
Royal Botanic Gardens ◽  
The Ideal

George Taylor was a major British figure in flowering plant taxonomy during the period from 1930 to 1970. A Scot, he was trained at Edinburgh University and was first employed (in 1928) in the Botany Department of the British Museum (Natural History) as assistant in the herbarium, then as Deputy Keeper of Botany and finally as Keeper, coming into contact with all the influential currents of plant taxonomy of his day. This experience, coupled with his life-long interest in gardening, made him the ideal person to become Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew when Sir Edward Salisbury retired in 1956. Taylor spent 15 very active years at Kew, and then, at an age when most are thinking of retiring, took on a new career as Director of the Stanley Smith Horticultural Trust, a post which he held for 18 years until illness made it impossible for him to continue. Over this long period, his influence on flowering plant taxonomy and gardening in Britain and abroad was enormous and widely recognized.

scholarly journals Threatened Plants – How to Save Them

Oryx ◽  
1976 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 257-258
Author(s):  
Grenville Lucas
Keyword(s):  
Flowering Plant ◽  
Botanic Gardens ◽  
Threatened Plants ◽  
Comprehensive Survey ◽  
Service Commission ◽  
Data Book ◽  
Royal Botanic Gardens ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Flowering Plant Species ◽  
Specialist Groups

In May 1974 IUCN set up the Threatened Plants Committee (TPC) of the Survival Service Commission, with Professor J. Heslop-Harrison, Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, as Chairman, and Grenville Lucas, also of Kew, as Secretary. The need for a comprehensive survey had been highlighted by Dr Ronald Melville's pioneer work in compiling the Red Data Book for plants. The Committee's task is to prepare a world list of endangered and threatened (flowering) plant species so that action plans can be drawn up. The world's decision-makers must have the facts. The work is centred at Kew. Material is collected and action planned, either through regional groups (the European group has already produced a preliminary draft of rare, threatened and endangered plants), or through specialist groups (a world-wide palm group was the first to be appointed). A third approach is through institutions – most of the world's major botanic gardens sent representatives to a conference at Kew in September 1975. The following is a summary, with extracts, of Grenville Lucas's paper on the work of the TPC read at the IUCN meeting in Kinshasa.

scholarly journals A theme issue on landscape ecology

1994 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 157
Author(s):  
Craig Moritz
Keyword(s):  
Landscape Ecology ◽  
Conservation Biology ◽  
Critical Review ◽  
Botanic Gardens ◽  
Theme Issue ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Ecological Society ◽  
Royal Botanic Gardens ◽  
New Feature ◽  
The Ideal

This issue introduces a new feature of Pacific Conservation Biology ? a theme issue. In this case the theme is "Landscape Ecology", a developing field in conservation biology which is strong in Australia and which, as these papers indicate, has considerable application to practical conservation. The papers are of high quality ? all were subject to critical review and revision ? and demonstrate the breadth of disciplines contributing to Landscape Ecology. A particularly pleasing feature is the range of organizations from which the authors come; Universities, CSIRO, State conservation agencies and the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney. This approaches the ideal we have set for the journal. The papers were submitted subsequent to a symposium on the topic at the 1993 meeting of the Ecological Society of Australia and were edited by Richard Hobbs; my thanks to him for the original suggestion and his extraordinary efficiency! I expect that we will have more such theme issues in the future, perhaps one a year, and I would welcome suggestions.

Portraying plants: illustrations collections at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

2003 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 22-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marilyn Ward ◽  
John Flanagan
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Botanic Gardens ◽  
Art Historians ◽  
Digital Strategy ◽  
Royal Botanic Gardens ◽  
Botanical Illustration

The Library & Archives at Kew hold one of the world’s greatest collections of botanical illustration, assembled over the last 200 years. A resource well-known to the natural history community, it contains much to interest art historians. Using this historically rich heritage our forward thinking includes acquisition of more contemporary items and the formulation of a digital strategy for 21st-century access and exploitation.

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