Abstract
THE retirement of Dr. John Hutchinson from the scientific staff of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, on May 31, after forty-four years service, will be noted with interest by botanists in many parts of the world. Hutchinson‘s early life was spent in handling and working with living plants in various horticultural establishments, and he started his career at Kew on the Gardens' staff in 1904. He showed such marked capacity for systematic botanical work that after less than a year he was transferred to the Herbarium. Here he was engaged in systematic and taxonomic work under Dr. Otto Stapf, with whom he worked for many years in the closest harmony. He was ‘Assistant' for India for six years, and ‘Assistant' for tropical Africa for a similar period. It was then that his special interest in African botany developed, and he was placed in charge of the African section of the Herbarium in 1922. He was responsible for some of the difficult groups (Euphorbiaceæ, Moraceæ, etc.) in the "Flora of Tropical Africa", and later, in collaboration with the late Dr. J. M. Daiziel, for the whole of the "Flora of West Tropical Africa". Hutchinson‘s knowledge of African plants was enhanced by two extensive botanical expeditions in southern Africa between 1928 and 1930, and by a visit to West Africa in 1937. On the first of these expeditions he visited the greater part of the Union, including Namaqualand, and travelled with General Smuts in the Zoutpansberg. The second expedition was made at General Smuts' express invitation ; on this occasion they explored widely through Southern and Northern Rhodesia, Nyasaland and Tanganyika. The results of these journeys were described by Hutchinson in his attractive book, "A Botanist in Southern Africa" (Gawthorn, 1946).
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Dr. John Hutchinson, F.R.S. Nature 161, 799–800 (1948). https://doi.org/10.1038/161799d0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/161799d0