Charles Austin Gardner (6 January 1896 – 24 February 1970) was an English-born Western Australian

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 ...

Biography

Born in Lancaster, in England, on 6 January 1896, Gardner emigrated to Western Australia with his family in 1909, where they took possession of land at

Yorkrakine Yorkrakine is a small town in the Wheatbelt region of Western Australia; it is part of the Shire of Tammin, east of the state capital, Perth. At the , Yorkrakine had a population of 117. Since then, the area has been listed as North Tammin in t ...

. Gardner showed an interest in art and botany from youth, becoming engrossed in his state museum's copy of Bentham's '' Flora Australiensis'' (London, 1863-78) and received encouragement from the government's botanist Desmond Herbert and botanical artist Emily Pelloe. After a BSc in Biology, he was appointed a botanical collector for the Forests Department in 1920, and the following year was engaged as botanist on the Kimberley Exploration Expedition, resulting in his first publication, ''Botanical Notes, Kimberley Division of Western Australia'', which gave descriptions for twenty new species. In 1924 he transferred to the

Department of Agriculture An agriculture ministry (also called an) agriculture department, agriculture board, agriculture council, or agriculture agency, or ministry of rural development) is a ministry charged with agriculture. The ministry is often headed by a minister f ...

, and following a departmental re-organisation in 1928 he was appointed Government Botanist and Curator of the State Herbarium. During this time he also wrote on botanical topics in governmental and public Western Australian media, including the remote students educational publication ''

Our Rural Magazine ''Our Rural Magazine'' was a monthly magazine produced between 1926 and 1946 by the WA Correspondence School of the Education Department of Western Australia for school children who were located in isolated circumstances. In the inter-war perio ...

''. His Wildflowers of Western Australia'', published by The West Australian in the 1940s went to over twenty editions.

Travels and publications

He travelled widely and published around 320 papers, the most important of which were ''Contributions to the Flora of Western Australia'' in ''Journal of the Royal Society of Western Australia'' (from 1923), '' Enumeratio Plantarum Australiae Occidentalis'' (1930), a census of the state's plants, and ''Flora of Western Australia Volume 1, Part 1, Gramineae'' (1952). He described eight genera and around 200 new species. In 1937 he became the first Australian Botanical Liaison Officer at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. His published works and contributions include, * (with H.W. Bennetts), (1956) ''The Toxic Plants of Western Australia'', Perth, West Australian Newspapers. * Lane-Poole, C. E, ''A primer of forestry, with illustrations of the principal forest trees of Western Australia''. 1922.

Legacy

Gardner was awarded the Medal of the Royal Society of Western Australia in 1949, and the Clarke Medal of the

Royal Society of New South Wales The Royal Society of New South Wales is a learned society based in Sydney, Australia. The Governor of New South Wales is the vice-regal patron of the Society. The Society was established as the Philosophical Society of Australasia on 27 June ...

in 1961. He retired in 1962, and died from diabetes at Subiaco, Western Australia, on 24 February 1970, aged 74. His personal botanical collection was bequeathed to the Benedictine Community at New Norcia, but was transferred to the State Herbarium in Perth in June 1970.

References

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Biography

Travels and publications

Legacy

See also

References

Further reading