Peter Goldblatt

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Peter Goldblatt
Born (1943-10-08) October 8, 1943 (age 80)
Johannesburg, S. Africa
NationalitySouth African
CitizenshipUnited States
Alma materUniversity of Cape Town
Awards Herbert Medal 1999
Scientific career
Fields Botany
Institutions Missouri Botanical Gardens
Author abbrev. (botany) Goldblatt

Peter Goldblatt (born 1943) is a South African botanist, working principally in the United States.

Contents

Life

Goldblatt was born in Johannesburg, South Africa on October 8, 1943. His undergraduate studies (B.Sc.) were undertaken at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesberg (1965–1966), from where he went on to graduate studies at the University of Cape Town, where he received his doctorate in 1970. He held a position as lecturer in botany at Witwatersrand (1967) and then Cape Town (1968–1971) before emigrating to the United States in 1972. In the US he took up a position as a researcher at the Missouri Botanical Gardens, in St. Louis, where he has remained since, holding the position of Senior Curator since 1990. He returned briefly to South Africa in 2006 as a researcher at the Compton Herbarium, South African National Biodiversity Institute, in Cape Town. He has also held appointments at the University of Missouri, as well as the University of Portland, Oregon (2000–2004). He obtained US citizenship in 1978. [1] [2] [3]

Work

Peter Goldblatt started his career as a plant collector in 1962, and worked extensively in Cape Province, but also in other regions of Africa, Madagascar, the United States, Greece, Italy, Israel, Turkey and Iran, having collected thousands of specimens. His interests lie in systematic taxonomy. [4] One of his main research interests has been the cytology and taxonomy of the Iridaceae of Africa. [1] [2] [3] A member of several botanical societies, he was also General Secretary (1982–1985) of the Association for the Taxonomic Study of Tropical African Flora. [5] [6]

In 1999 he was awarded the International Bulb Society's Herbert Medal for his contributions to the knowledge of bulbous plants. [7] In 2021 he was awarded the Foster Memorial Plaque for his contributions to the genus Iris. [8]

Selected publications

Goldblatt has published a large number of scientific publications, and several books (see C.V.). [1]

Books

Coauthored with John Charles Manning:

Book chapters
Articles

Legacy

A number of taxa have been named in his honour, including;

The International Plant Names Index lists over 1,300 taxa named by him, particularly from the Iridaceae, Scilloideae including Hyacintheae, [9] [10] Asteraceae and Polygalaceae. [11] e.g.

The standard author abbreviation Goldblatt is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name. [12]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Asparagales</span> Order of monocot flowering plants

Asparagales is an order of plants in modern classification systems such as the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (APG) and the Angiosperm Phylogeny Web. The order takes its name from the type family Asparagaceae and is placed in the monocots amongst the lilioid monocots. The order has only recently been recognized in classification systems. It was first put forward by Huber in 1977 and later taken up in the Dahlgren system of 1985 and then the APG in 1998, 2003 and 2009. Before this, many of its families were assigned to the old order Liliales, a very large order containing almost all monocots with colorful tepals and lacking starch in their endosperm. DNA sequence analysis indicated that many of the taxa previously included in Liliales should actually be redistributed over three orders, Liliales, Asparagales, and Dioscoreales. The boundaries of the Asparagales and of its families have undergone a series of changes in recent years; future research may lead to further changes and ultimately greater stability. In the APG circumscription, Asparagales is the largest order of monocots with 14 families, 1,122 genera, and about 36,000 species.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Monocotyledon</span> Clade of flowering plants

Monocotyledons, commonly referred to as monocots, are grass and grass-like flowering plants (angiosperms), the seeds of which typically contain only one embryonic leaf, or cotyledon. They constitute one of the major groups into which the flowering plants have traditionally been divided; the rest of the flowering plants have two cotyledons and are classified as dicotyledons, or dicots.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Iridaceae</span> Family of flowering plants comprising irises, gladioli, and crocuses

Iridaceae is a family of plants in order Asparagales, taking its name from the irises. It has a nearly global distribution, with 69 accepted genera with a total of c. 2500 species. It includes a number of economically important cultivated plants, such as species of Freesia, Gladiolus, and Crocus, as well as the crop saffron.

<i>Gladiolus</i> Genus of perennial cormous flowering plants

Gladiolus is a genus of perennial cormous flowering plants in the iris family (Iridaceae).

<i>Geosiris</i> Genus of flowering plants

Geosiris is a genus in the flowering plant family Iridaceae, first described in 1894. It was thought for many years to contain only one species, Geosiris aphylla, endemic to Madagascar. But then in 2010, a second species was described, Geosiris albiflora, from Mayotte Island in the Indian Ocean northwest of Madagascar. In 2017, a third species was found in Queensland, Australia, Geosiris australiensis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Campynemataceae</span> Family of flowering plants

Campynemataceae (Campynemaceae) is a family of flowering plants. The family consists of two genera and four species of perennial herbaceous plants endemic to New Caledonia and Tasmania.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to botany:

<i>Isophysis</i> Genus of flowering plants

Isophysis is a genus of herbaceous, perennial and rhizomatous plants in the Iris family (Iridaceae). A monotypic genus formerly known as Hewardia, it contains a single species, Isophysis tasmanica is a Palaeoendemic found only in the south-west of Tasmania.

Xenoscapa is a genus of herbaceous, perennial and bulbous plants in the family Iridaceae. It consists of only three species distributed in Africa, and is closely related to the genera Freesia. The genus name is derived from the Greek words xenos, meaning "strange", and scapa, meaning "flowering stem".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Miriam Phoebe de Vos</span> South African botanist (b.1912 d.2005)

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lilioid monocots</span> Grade of flowering plant orders, within Lilianae

Lilioid monocots is an informal name used for a grade of five monocot orders in which the majority of species have flowers with relatively large, coloured tepals. This characteristic is similar to that found in lilies ("lily-like"). Petaloid monocots refers to the flowers having tepals which all resemble petals (petaloid). The taxonomic terms Lilianae or Liliiflorae have also been applied to this assemblage at various times. From the early nineteenth century many of the species in this group of plants were put into a very broadly defined family, Liliaceae sensu lato or s.l.. These classification systems are still found in many books and other sources. Within the monocots the Liliaceae s.l. were distinguished from the Glumaceae.

<i>Iris tuberosa</i> Species of flowering plant

Iris tuberosa is a species of tuberous flowering plant of the genus Iris, with the common names snake's-head, snake's-head iris, widow iris, black iris, or velvet flower-de-luce.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Taxonomy of Liliaceae</span> Classification of the lily family Liliaceae

The taxonomy of the plant family Liliaceae has had a complex history since its first description in the mid-eighteenth century. Originally, the Liliaceae were defined as having a "calix" (perianth) of six equal-coloured parts, six stamens, a single style, and a superior, three-chambered (trilocular) ovary turning into a capsule fruit at maturity. The taxonomic circumscription of the family Liliaceae progressively expanded until it became the largest plant family and also extremely diverse, being somewhat arbitrarily defined as all species of plants with six tepals and a superior ovary. It eventually came to encompass about 300 genera and 4,500 species, and was thus a "catch-all" and hence paraphyletic. Only since the more modern taxonomic systems developed by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (APG) and based on phylogenetic principles, has it been possible to identify the many separate taxonomic groupings within the original family and redistribute them, leaving a relatively small core as the modern family Liliaceae, with fifteen genera and 600 species.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Melanthiales</span> Extinct order of flowering plants

MelanthialesLink was an order of monocotyledons, whose name and botanical authority is derived by typification from the description of the type family, Melanthiaceae by Johann Heinrich Friedrich Link in 1829.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nivenioideae</span> Subfamily of flowering plants

Nivenioideae is a subfamily of flowering plants and one of the six subfamilies in the family Iridaceae. It contains three genera, from South Africa which are the only true shrubs in the family, It previously included Aristea, Patersonia and also Geosiris, which are now each placed in their own monotypic subfamily.

Graham Dugald Duncan(born 1959) is a South African botanist and specialist bulb horticulturalist at the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden, Cape Town, South Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dierdré A. Snijman</span> South African botanist

Dierdré "Dee" Anne Snijman is a South African botanist and plant taxonomist who is notable for studying and writing extensively on bulbs. She has described over 120 species and has written comprehensive works on South African flora. She received the 1997 Herbert Medal from the International Bulb Society for her research on Amaryllis.

<i>Babiana tubiflora</i> Species of flowering plant

Babiana tubiflora is a species of geophyte of 7–15 cm (2.8–5.9 in) high that is assigned to the family Iridaceae. It has whitish mirror-symmetrical flowers with a long narrow tube that split into six tepal lobes, have three stamens, and line- to lance-shaped, laterally compressed leaves. It is an endemic species of South Africa that can be found along the west and south coast of the Western Cape province. It flowers from August to early October.

<i>Babiana sambucina</i> Species of flowering plant

Babiana sambucina is a species of geophyte of 8–30 cm (3.1–11.8 in) high that is assigned to the family Iridaceae. It has dense spikes of blue to violet-coloured, often fragrant flowers. There are two subspecies, B. sambucina subsp. longibracteata is restricted to a small area in the Northern Cape, B. sambucina subsp. sambucina grows in the Western Cape and Eastern Cape provinces of South Africa. Flowers are present in August and September.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Goldblatt 2016a.
  2. 1 2 Goldblatt 2016b.
  3. 1 2 Gunn & Codd 1981, p. 169.
  4. Goldblatt 1995.
  5. HUH 2015.
  6. Tropicos 2015.
  7. Timber Press 2016.
  8. Pries, Bob. "Foster Memorial Plaque". American Iris Society. Retrieved 14 January 2022.
  9. Manning, Goldblatt & Fay 2004.
  10. Manning et al. 2009.
  11. IPNI. List of plant names with authority Goldblatt.
  12. International Plant Names Index.  Goldblatt.

Bibliography