William Bertram Turrill FRS OBE FLS (14 June 1890 – 15 December 1961) was an English botanist.

Education

He was born in Woodstock, Oxfordshire to William Banbury and Thirza Mary (née Homan) Turrill and educated at the Woodstock National School. He served with the

Royal Army Medical Corps The Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) is a specialist corps in the British Army which provides medical services to all Army personnel and their families, in war and in peace. The RAMC, the Royal Army Veterinary Corps, the Royal Army Dental Corps a ...

of the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

during the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, mainly on the

Macedonian front The Macedonian front, also known as the Salonica front (after Thessaloniki), was a military theatre of World War I formed as a result of an attempt by the Allied Powers to aid Serbia, in the autumn of 1915, against the combined attack of German ...

Career

Turrill worked in the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew and was responsible for many innovations including a mathematical classification of leaf shapes.

Awards and honours

Turrill received the Order of the British Empire in 1955 and the gold medal of the Linnean Society in 1958. He was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

in March 1958 as someone: This botanist is denoted by the author abbreviation Turrill 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 ''Intern ...

Personal life

He married Florence Homan in 1918.

Eponymy

The plant species ''

Veronica turrilliana ''Veronica turrilliana'' ( bg, Търилово великденче) is a species of speedwell in the family Plantaginaceae, endemic to the Strandzha mountain range in south-eastern Bulgaria and north-western Turkey. It is included in the Red ...

'', '' Symplocos turrilliana'', '' Cryptocarya turrilliana'', '' Astragalus turrillii'' and ''

Cyperus turrillii ''Cyperus turrillii'' is a species of sedge that is native to parts of central and southern Africa. The species was first formally described by the botanist Georg Kükenthal Georg Kükenthal (30 March 1864 in Weißenfels – 20 October 1955 in ...

'' are named after him.

References

External links

* 1890 births 1961 deaths People from Woodstock, Oxfordshire Botanists with author abbreviations English botanists Veitch Memorial Medal recipients Victoria Medal of Honour (Horticulture) recipients Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of the Linnean Society of London New Naturalist writers Officers of the Order of the British Empire Military personnel from Oxfordshire British Army personnel of World War I Royal Army Medical Corps soldiers {{UK-botanist-stub