Galfrid Clement Keyworth "Stalky" Dunsterville (February 18, 1905 – November 26, 1988) was a business executive and a botanist who studied the
orchid
Orchids are plants that belong to the family Orchidaceae (), a diverse and widespread group of flowering plants with blooms that are often colourful and fragrant.
Along with the Asteraceae, they are one of the two largest families of flowering ...
s of
Venezuela
Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...
.
He was born in
Devon
Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devon is ...
to
Lionel Dunsterville
Major General Lionel Charles Dunsterville, (9 November 1865 – 18 March 1946) was a British Army officer, who led Dunsterforce across present-day Iraq and Iran towards the Caucasus and Baku during the First World War.
Early life
Lionel Charles ...
(who inspired the title character of
Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist. He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work.
...
's ''
Stalky & Co.'' and later became a major-general) and his wife, the former Margaret "Daisie" Keyworth. Galfrid took a degree in mining engineering from the
University of Birmingham
, mottoeng = Through efforts to heights
, established = 1825 – Birmingham School of Medicine and Surgery1836 – Birmingham Royal School of Medicine and Surgery1843 – Queen's College1875 – Mason Science College1898 – Mason Univers ...
in 1925.
He then joined
Shell Oil
Shell plc is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England. Shell is a public limited company with a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and secondary listings on Euronext Amsterdam and the New Yor ...
and worked in various countries. He married Ellinor "Nora" Freeman in 1929; they had two daughters.
Dunsterville had never liked his given names, and when a co-worker and Kipling fan nicknamed him "Stalky", it stuck.
[
In the early 1950s, he became interested in Venezuela's native orchids, initially as subjects for painting. He made contact with the orchidologist Leslie A. Garay and after retirement devoted himself to orchids full-time, traveling around Venezuela with his wife to draw and collect them. His collaboration with Garay led to the six-volume ''Venezuelan Orchids Illustrated'' (finished in 1976) and ''Orchids of Venezuela: An Illustrated Field Guide'' (1979). He also published over 250 articles on orchids, solo or co-authored with his wife, Garay, and others.][ His book with Ellinor, ''Orchid Hunting in the Lost World (And Elsewhere in Venezuela)'' (1988), was a collection of 64 articles that had originally appeared in the ''American Orchid Society Bulletin''.
]
Legacy
Garay named two genera, each with only one known species, after him: ''Dunstervillea
''Dunstervillea'' is a genus of flowering plants from the orchid family, Orchidaceae. At present (June 2014), only one species is known, ''Dunstervillea mirabilis'', native to Venezuela (Bolívar Province) to Brazil (State of Roraima), and easter ...
'' and ''Stalkya
''Stalkya'' is a monotypic genus of flowering plants from the orchid family, Orchidaceae.Pridgeon, A.M., Cribb, P.J., Chase, M.C. & Rasmussen, F.N. (2003). Genera Orchidacearum 3: 1-358. Oxford University Press, New York, Oxford. The sole species ...
''.[
]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dunsterville, G. C. K.
Orchidologists
1905 births
1988 deaths