Robert Desmond Meikle OBE (18 May 1923 – 8 February 2021) was a British botanist from 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 ...

Life and career

Meikle was born in May 1923 in Newtownards, County Down,

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

. He became most notable for his two-volume work ''Flora of Cyprus'' (1977 and 1985), the first comprehensive contribution about the almost 1750 plant taxa from

Cyprus Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is ge ...

. Other works including parts of the encyclopedia

Flora Europaea The ''Flora Europaea'' is a 5-volume encyclopedia of plants, published between 1964 and 1993 by Cambridge University Press. The aim was to describe all the national Floras of Europe in a single, authoritative publication to help readers identify ...

, ''Willows and Poplars of Great Britain and Ireland'' from 1984 and ''Garden Plants'' from 1963. He has written articles for the Irish Naturalists' Journal since the 1940s and he was editor of the ''Draft index of author abbreviations compiled at the Herbarium, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew'' from 1980. This botanist is denoted by the author abbreviation Meikle 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 ...

. He retired from the Herbarium at the

in 1983, where he had held the grade of Principal Scientific Officer. Meikle died in February 2021 at the age of 97.

Honours

In June 1983, Meikle was made an Officer of the

Order of the British Empire 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 ...

(OBE).

Books

Flora of Cyprus: 1 (1977). R.D. Meikle. Bentham-Moxon Trust; UK. Flora of Cyprus: 2 (1985). R.D. Meikle. Bentham-Moxon Trust; UK.

References

Sources

* Robert Zander (Author), Fritz Encke, Günther Buchheim, Siegmund Seybold (Editors): ''Handwörterbuch der Pflanzennamen''. 13. Edition; Eugen Ulmer Verlag, Stuttgart, 1984, (German)

External links

* 1923 births 2021 deaths Botanists active in Kew Gardens Botanists with author abbreviations British botanists Officers of the Order of the British Empire People from Newtownards {{UK-botanist-stub