Peter Goldblatt

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Peter Goldblatt
Born (1943-10-08) October 8, 1943 (age 79)
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.

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

Freesia is a genus of herbaceous perennial flowering plants in the family Iridaceae, first described as a genus in 1866 by Christian Friedrich Ecklon (1886) and named after the German botanist and medical practitioner, Friedrich Freese (1795-1876). It is native to the eastern side of southern Africa, from Kenya south to South Africa, most species being found in Cape Provinces. Species of the former genus Anomatheca are now included in Freesia. The plants commonly known as "freesias", with fragrant funnel-shaped flowers, are cultivated hybrids of a number of Freesia species. Some other species are also grown as ornamental plants.

<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, meaning rainbow, referring to its many colours. There are 66 accepted genera with a total of c. 2244 species worldwide. It includes a number of other well known cultivated plants, such as freesias, gladioli and crocuses.

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

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

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Asphodelaceae</span> Family of flowering plants in the order Asparagales

Asphodelaceae is a family of flowering plants in the order Asparagales. Such a family has been recognized by most taxonomists, but the circumscription has varied widely. In its current circumscription in the APG IV system, it includes about 40 genera and 900 known species. The type genus is Asphodelus.

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 australiensisB.Gray & Y.W.Low.

<i>Galtonia</i> Genus of plants

Galtonia is a genus of plants in the family Asparagaceae, subfamily Scilloideae. Native to Southern Africa, the genus is named after Sir Francis Galton. According to some authorities it has been subsumed into Ornithogalum as a subgenus, while others prefer to keep it as a separate genus.

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

Babiana is a genus of geophytes in the family Iridaceae with 93 recognized species as of March 2022. The leaves consist of a stalk and a blade that are at an angle to each other. The leaf blades are entire, laterally flattened and pleated, and often hairy. Each individual flower is subtended by two hairy or smooth bracts that are green in most species. The outer bract is often the largest of the two. In most species the bracts have a dry, brown tip, but in a few species it is entirely green or entirely dry when flowering or the outer bract is translucent and has a papery texture. The inner bract is forked or split all the way to its base. Each flower is without a pedicel, with six tepals that are merged at their base into a tube and form a perianth that is mirror-symmetrical in most species, with three anthers implanted where the perianth tube widens and that are, in almost every species, clustered at one side of the style. The style has three branches that widen towards the tip and the ovary is inferior. Flowers occur in almost every conceivable colour, many have markings on some of the tepals, and few star-symmetrical flowers have a centre that strongly contrasts with the free part of the perianth. The majority of these species are endemic to the west and southwest of South Africa, and southwestern Namibia, but one species occurs elsewhere in Namibia and South Africa and another species can be found in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The genus name is derived from the Dutch word baviaan, referring to the Chacma baboon, Papio ursinus, that consumes the corms of plants in the genus. The genus is called bobbejaantjie in Afrikaans, meaning small baboon.

<i>Watsonia</i> (plant) Genus of flowering plants in the iris family Iridaceae

Watsonia is a genus of plants in the family Iridaceae, subfamily Crocoideae. Watsonias are native to southern Africa. The genus is named after Sir William Watson, an 18th-century British botanist.

<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.

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

Crocoideae is one of the major subfamilies in the family Iridaceae.

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

Witsenia is a genus of flowering plants in the family Iridaceae, first described as a genus in 1782. There is only one known species, Witsenia maura, endemic to Cape Province in western South Africa.

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

Miriam Phoebe de Vos was a leading South African botanist and academic. She was an expert on bulbous plants, especially Romulea. She also had a special interest in Moraea and Clivia.

<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.

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.

Gwendoline Joyce Lewis (1909–1967) was a South African botanist.

<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.

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

Babiana hirsuta is a species of geophyte of 40–70 cm (16–28 in) high that is assigned to the family Iridaceae. It has many scarlet mirror-symmetrical flowers in a branched inflorescence with several short ascending branches. The flower has a narrow tube, and three large, blackish or dark purple anthers that extend beyond the dorsal tepal. The leaves are velvety hairy, lance-shaped, laterally compressed and set in a fan. It is an endemic species of South Africa that can be found along the west coast of the Northern and Western Cape provinces as far south as Saldanha. It is called red babiana in English, but that name is also applied to Babiana villosa, and strandlelie, sandlelie and rooihanekam in Afrikaans. Until 2008, the strandlelie was known as Babiana thunbergii.

<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.

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 et al. 2004.
  10. Manning, J.C., Forest, F., Devey, D.S., Fay, M.F. & Goldblatt, P. 2009.
  11. IPNI. List of plant names with authority Goldblatt.
  12. International Plant Names Index.  Goldblatt.

Bibliography