Australian Orchids & the Doctors they Commemorate Part 20 of 20

 This series ends with Dr John Pearn’s summary below.

Enduring memorials

Scientific names of living things will be used as long as scientists find it useful to do so. Names change as taxonomists revise plant groupings and there is a proposal to dispense with scientific names, in favour of an alternative system called the PhyloCode.

In the past, the doctrine of signatures linked the forms of plants with their supposed therapeutic uses. But the world of binomial nomenclature (which Linnaeus introduced in 1753), allows for the most fitting memorials in medicine and botany. In the scientific names of Australian orchids, the lives of many doctors and botanists endure.

Though this series has been divided into 20 parts, it does not cover the whole of his original article which can be viewed here and downloaded as a pdf.

Australian Orchids & the Doctors they Commemorate Part 18 of 20

Colin Ledward (1903 – 1963)

A general medical practitioner of Cloncurry and Canungra (Queensland); the orchid that bears his name was collected from a single colony discovered in 1934 and is now almost certainly extinct.

Orchid

Acianthus fornicatus (= Acianthus ledwardii)

Australian Orchids & the Doctors they Commemorate Part 19 of 20

Arthur George Harrold (1918 – 2012)

A navy surgeon who later worked as general medical practitioner, ecologist and conservationist in Noosa (Queensland), and graduate of the University of Cambridge; he formed the Noosa Parks Association in 1962 and helped establish the Cooloola National Park.

Orchid

Habenaria harroldii

Named in recent years, so there is only general information on the genus, Habenaria

Australian Orchids & the Doctors they Commemorate Part 17 of 20

Hugo Flecker (1884 – 1957)

A pioneer Australian radiotherapist, radiologist, general medical practitioner and toxicologist of Cairns (Queensland) who dug his own radioactive ore at Radium Hill (South Australia), a medical graduate from the University of Sydney, and a natural historian; his life and works are commemorated by the Flecker Botanic Gardens in Cairns.

Orchids

Cestichis fleckeri (= Liparis fleckeri) Slender Sphinx Orchid

Thelychiton fleckeri (= Dendrobium fleckeri) Apricot Cane Orchid

Australian Orchids & the Doctors They Commemorate Part 16 of 20

Hereward Leighton Kesteven (1881 – 1964)

A general medical practitioner, medical scientist, zoologist, pioneer of industrial medicine in Australia, and national medical director of the Allied Works Council during World War II.

Orchids

Dendrobium kestevenii  is the name applied to the hybrid between D. speciosum subsp. speciosum and D. kingianum

Australian Orchids & the Doctors they Commemorate Part 13 of 20

Thomas Lane Bancroft (1860 – 1933) son and Joseph Bancroft (1836 -1894)  father

Thomas Lane Bancroft is one of Australia’s greatest doctor-naturalists; he elucidated the life cycle of the lungfish, Neoceratodus forsteri

Orchid Species

Sarcochilus dilatatus (= Sacrcochilus bancroftii) Brown Butterfly Orchid

Australian Orchids & the Doctors they Commemorate Part 11 of 20

Ferdinand Von Mueller (1825 – 1896)

A qualified pharmacist in Rostock (Germany) who emigrated to Australia in 1847 and wrote extensively on the medicinal properties of plants; he was a founder of Australian botany and published over 800 articles on botany.

Orchid species:

Habenaria ferdinandi image and location

Taeniophyllum muelleri

Australian Orchids & the Doctors they Commemorate Part 9 of 20

Hans Herman Behr (1818 – 1904)

A physician, botanist, entomologist, lepidopterist, poet, writer, humourist and linguist.

Orchid species: Arachnorhis behrii  Synonym: Caladenia behrii

Diuris behrii (also known as Golden Cowslips)

Australian Orchids & the Doctors they Commemorate Part 8 of 20

Edwin Daintrey (1814-1887)

A medical student who abandoned his medical career just before graduation; he emigrated to Sydney, where he practised as a solicitor, cofounded the Linnean Society of New South Wales, and was appointed honorary secretary of the Australian Library in Bent Street.

Orchid species: Pterostylis daintreana

Australian Orchids and the Doctors they Commemorate Part 7 of 20

Robert Brown (1773 -1858)

A Scottish-born and Edinburgh-trained surgeon, doctor-soldier, and the father of Australian botany; he was awarded the Copley Medal in 1839, then the world’s highest accolade in science.

Orchid species: Elythranthera brunonis (= Glossodia brunonis)

Microtis brownii

Prasophyllum brownii

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