Charles Edward Hubbard (23 May 19008 May 1980) was a British botanist, specialising in

agrostology Agrostology (from Greek , ''agrōstis'', "type of grass"; and , ''-logia''), sometimes graminology, is the scientific study of the grasses (the family Poaceae, or Gramineae). The grasslike species of the sedge family (Cyperaceae), the rush family ...

– the study of

grass Poaceae () or Gramineae () is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns a ...

es. He was considered "the world authority on the classification and recognition of grasses" in his time. He is indicated by the author abbreviation C.E.Hubb. when citing a

botanical name A botanical name is a formal scientific name conforming to the ''International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants'' (ICN) and, if it concerns a plant cultigen, the additional cultivar or Group epithets must conform to the ''Internat ...

Biography

Charles Edward Hubbard was born on 23 May 1900 in Appleton, a hamlet on the

Sandringham Estate Sandringham House is a country house in the parish of Sandringham, Norfolk, England. It is one of the royal residences of Charles III, whose grandfather, George VI, and great-grandfather, George V, both died there. The house stands in a estate ...

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

, where his father, also named Charles Edward Hubbard, was the head gardener at Appleton House to

Maud of Wales Maud of Wales (Maud Charlotte Mary Victoria; 26 November 1869 – 20 November 1938) was the Queen of Norway as the wife of King Haakon VII. The youngest daughter of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra of the United Kingdom, she was known as P ...

, the Queen of Norway. He was schooled at Sandringham, and at King Edward VII Grammar School in King's Lynn, before joining the staff of the Royal Gardens at Sandringham in 1916. During his time there, he also spent five months at the

Bygdøy Royal Estate Bygdøy Royal Estate ( no, Bygdøy kongsgård), also known as the ''Bygdø Royal Farm'', is a Kongsgård estate and manor house that occupies a large part of the northwestern part of the Bygdøy peninsula in Oslo, Norway. It is the official summe ...

near

Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population ...

, and served for seven months in the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...

Kew Gardens

In April 1920, Hubbard left the Sandringham Estate to join the

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. An internationally important botanical research and education institution, it employs 1,10 ...

, initially working in the temperate house and arboretum. In September 1922, he gained a position in the herbarium, working at first under

Stephen Troyte Dunn Stephen Troyte Dunn (26 August 1868, Bristol - 18 April, 1938, Sheen, Surrey, England) was a British botanist. He described and systematized a significant number of plants around the world, his input most noticeable in the taxonomy of the flora ...

, and later under Otto Stapf. Hubbard published his first

scientific paper : ''For a broader class of literature, see Academic publishing.'' Scientific literature comprises scholarly publications that report original empirical and theoretical work in the natural and social sciences. Within an academic field, scienti ...

in 1925, describing two new species in the genus ''

Stipa ''Stipa'' is a genus of around 300 large perennial hermaphroditic grasses collectively known as feather grass, needle grass, and spear grass. They are placed in the subfamily Pooideae and the tribe Stipeae, which also contains many species for ...

''. In 1927, he married Madeleine Grace Witham, with whom he fathered a son, John. At the request of the

Government of Queensland The Queensland Government is the democratic administrative authority of the Australian state of Queensland. The Government of Queensland, a parliamentary constitutional monarchy was formed in 1859 as prescribed in its Constitution, as amended fr ...

, Hubbard travelled to Australia in 1930, in exchange for the Australian botanist W. D. Francis, who spent a year at Kew. He visited the herbaria in Sydney,

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...

and

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth i ...

, as well as examining every grass specimen in the

Queensland Herbarium The Queensland Herbarium (Index Herbariorum code: BRI) is situated at the Brisbane Botanic Gardens, Mount Coot-tha, in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It is part of Queensland's Department of Environment and Science. It is responsible for disco ...

Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Queensland, and the third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of approximately 2.6 million. Brisbane lies at the centre of the South ...

. He carried out

field work Field research, field studies, or fieldwork is the collection of raw data outside a laboratory, library, or workplace setting. The approaches and methods used in field research vary across disciplines. For example, biologists who conduct f ...

around Rockhampton and the Fitzroy River in central Queensland, accumulating 15,000 specimens. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

, the Kew herbarium was evacuated to

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

and Hubbard moved with it, keeping his British herbarium at 9 Crick Road, the former residence of

George Claridge Druce George Claridge Druce, MA, LLD, JP, FRS, FLS (23 May 1850 – 29 February 1932) was an English botanist and a Mayor of Oxford. Personal life and education G. Claridge Druce was born at Potterspury on Watling Street in Northamptonshire. ...

, while the Kew herbarium was housed in the basement of the Bodleian Library. On 1 October 1957, Hubbard was promoted to Keeper of the Herbarium and Library at Kew, and rose to deputy director in April 1959. His first wife died in 1961. and in 1963, Hubbard married Florence Kate Hubbard, his

second cousin Most generally, in the lineal kinship system used in the English-speaking world, a cousin is a type of familial relationship in which two relatives are two or more familial generations away from their most recent common ancestor. Commonly, ...

by marriage. On 30 November 1965, he retired and moved to

Hampton, Middlesex Hampton is a suburban area on the north bank of the River Thames, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, England, and historically in the County of Middlesex. which includes Hampton Court Palace. Hampton is served by two railway station ...

, close to Kew. He died on 8 May 1980.

Works

Hubbard published a long series of scientific articles, chiefly on the

grasses Poaceae () or Gramineae () is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns ...

of Europe and

tropical Africa Although tropical Africa is mostly familiar to the West for its rainforests, this biogeographic realm of Africa is far more diverse. While the tropics are thought of as regions with hot moist climates, which are caused by latitude and the trop ...

, but also covering the grasses of the

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greate ...

Mauritius Mauritius ( ; french: Maurice, link=no ; mfe, label= Mauritian Creole, Moris ), officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean about off the southeast coast of the African continent, east of Madagascar. It ...

, British Malaya, and Fiji. He is perhaps better remembered for his popular science book ''Grasses: a Guide to their Structure, Identification, Uses and Distribution in the British Isles'', published in 1954, with a second edition following in 1968.

Accolades

Hubbard was the recipient of a number of awards, including the OBE (1954),

CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(1965), the

Linnean Gold Medal The Linnean Gold Medal is a medal awarded by the Linnean Society of London in "special circumstances" for "services to the Society". As the society's highest honour it has, to date, only been awarded three times. Gold Medallists * Doris Kermack ...

(1967) and the

Veitch Memorial Medal The Veitch Memorial Medal is an international prize issued annually by the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS). Goal The prize is awarded to "persons of any nationality who have made an outstanding contribution to the advancement and improvement o ...

(1970). He was awarded a D.Sc. degree ' by the

University of Reading The University of Reading is a public university in Reading, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1892 as University College, Reading, a University of Oxford extension college. The institution received the power to grant its own degrees in 192 ...

(1960). A number of botanical names commemorate Hubbard, including '' Acacia hubbardiana'', ''

Digitaria ''Digitaria'' is a genus of plants in the grass family native to tropical and warm temperate regions but can occur in tropical, subtropical, and cooler temperate regions as well. Common names include crabgrass, finger-grass, and fonio. They are ...

hubbardii'', '' Hubbardochloa'' (and thus also the subtribe Hubbardochloinae), '' Hubbardia'' (and thus also the tribe Hubbardieae) and '' Pandanus hubbardii''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hubbard, Charles Edward 1900 births 1980 deaths 20th-century British botanists Agrostologists Botanists active in Kew Gardens Botanists with author abbreviations Commanders of the Order of the British Empire English botanists People from Sandringham, Norfolk Veitch Memorial Medal recipients

Biography

Kew Gardens

Works

Accolades

See also

References