Dunkinfield Henry Scott

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Dunkinfield Henry Scott (28 November 1854-29 January 1934) was an English paleobotanist, a leading authority on the structure of fossil plants. He published his On the structure and affinities of fossil plants from the Palaeozoic rocks in 1897.^[1]

Scott was born in London, the son of George Gilbert Scott, matriculated at the University of Oxford, Christ Church College, graduating in 1876. Scott studied at the University of Würzburg under the German botanist Julius von Sachs in 1879-1880. Afterwards he taught at University College London and the Royal College of Science. He held a research post at Jodrell Laboratory in Kew Gardens as an “honorary keeper”, 1892-1906. Among his students was Ethel Sargant.

Scott collaborated with William Crawford Williamson on three seminal papers on fossil-plant morphology in 1894–95. And after the death of his co-author went on to publish the completion of his Introduction to Structural Botany in 1896.^[2] In 1904, Scott established the plant class Pteridospermeae, for the fossilized "seed ferns", now called Pteridospermatophyta tentatively ranked as a division of the plant kingdom.^{[3][4] [5]}

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Scott, Dunkinfield Henry (1897) On the structure and affinities of fossil plants from the Palaeozoic rocks Royal Society of London OCLC 30853264
2. ^ Part 1 on flowering plants was published in 1894, and Part 2 on flowerless plants in 1896. Both went through multiple editions with other editors taking them on after Scott's death.
3. ^ Taggart, Ralph E. "Pteridosperms: Carboniferous Seed Ferns" Michigan State University
4. ^ "The Pteridospermeae, for which Potonie's name Cycadofilices is still sometimes used, include all the fern-like plants which, on the evidence available, appear to have reproduced by means of seeds." "Paleobotany: Spermophyta" 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
5. ^ A.C. Seward, Darwin and Modern Science 1909 - Chapter 12"

[edit] References

• Crystal , David (1998) The Cambridge Biographical Encyclopedia (2nd ed.) Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England