Edward James Salisbury

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Sir Edward James Salisbury, (1886-1978), was an English botanist and economist. He was born in Harpenden, Hertfordshire and graduated in botany from University College London in 1905. In 1913, he obtained a D.Sc. with a thesis on fossil seeds and was appointed a senior lecturer at East London College. He returned to University College London as a senior lecturer, from 1924 as a reader in plant ecology and from 1929 as Quain Professor of botany.

He was director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew from 1943 to 1956. He was responsible for the restoration of the gardens after the Second World War.

He was a Fellow of the Royal Society and won the sociatey’s Royal Medal in 1945. In 1936, he was awarded the Veitch Memorial Medal of the Royal Horticultural Society in acknowledgement of his book The Living Garden (1935), which was enormously popular. In 1939, he received the Commander of the British Empire and in 1946 he was knighted.

At first, his research was focussed on forest ecology, particularly in his native Hertfordshire. Later, he pioneered investigations of seed size and reproductive output of plants in relation to habitat. He also investigated the ecology of garden weeds and of dune plants.

[edit] Popular science books

  • The Living Garden. 1936
  • Flowers of the Woods. 1946

[edit] Scientific books

[edit] Selected scientific papers


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