Charles Gardner

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Not to be confused with Charles Gairdner.

Charles Austin Gardner (6 January 1896 – 24 February 1970) was a Western Australian botanist.

Born in Lancaster, England on 6 January 1896, he emigrated to Western Australia with his family in 1909.

He showed an interest in art and botany from youth, and was appointed a botanical collector for the Forests Department in 1920. The following year he was appointed botanist to the Kimberley Exploration Expedition, resulting in his first botanical publication, Botanical Notes, Kimberley Division of Western Australia, in which twenty new species were described. In 1924 he transferred to the Department of Agriculture, and following a departmental re-organisation in 1928 he was appointed Government Botanist and Curator of the State Herbarium.

He travelled widely and published around 320 papers, the most important of which were in 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) and Flora of Western Australia Volume 1, Part 1, Gramineae (1952). He described eight genera and about 200 new species. In 1937 he became the first Australian Botanical Liaison Officer at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

He was awarded the Medal of the Royal Society of Western Australia in 1949.

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.

[edit] References

[edit] Publications

  • (with H.W. Bennetts), (1956) The Toxic Plants of Western Australia, Perth, West Australian Newspapers.

[edit] Further reading

  • (1996) Description of botanist's work (Gardner, C. A.) Wildflower Society of Western Australia newsletter, Vol 34, no. 4, p.15-18
Persondata
NAME Gardner, Charles
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gardner, Charles Austin
SHORT DESCRIPTION Australian botanist
DATE OF BIRTH 6 January 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH Lancaster, England
DATE OF DEATH 24 February 1970
PLACE OF DEATH Subiaco, Western Australia
The standard author abbreviation C.A.Gardner is used to indicate this individual as the author when citing a botanical name.[1]