Kaj Borge Vollesen (born 27 January 1946) is a

botanist Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek wo ...

Life

Vollessen received his MSc (1975) in Taxonomic Botany and PhD (1982) in Taxonomy and Ecology from The

University of Copenhagen The University of Copenhagen ( da, Københavns Universitet, KU) is a prestigious public university, public research university in Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in ...

Work

He was a Principal Scientific Officer at the Kew Gardens until his retirement in 2006 and is now an Honorary Research Fellow. His work is principally focused on the

Acanthaceae Acanthaceae is a family (the acanthus family) of dicotyledonous flowering plants containing almost 250 genera and about 2500 species. Most are tropical herbs, shrubs, or twining vines; some are epiphytes. Only a few species are distributed in te ...

and

Cyperaceae The Cyperaceae are a family of graminoid (grass-like), monocotyledonous flowering plants known as sedges. The family is large, with some 5,500 known species described in about 90 genera, the largest being the "true sedges" genus ''Carex'' w ...

families of plants.

Legacy

He is the authority for at least 327

taxa In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; plural taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular nam ...

including:

References

20th-century Danish botanists 1946 births Living people 21st-century Danish botanists Botanists active in Kew Gardens {{Botanist-stub