Harold E. Robinson

Harold Ernest Robinson (born 1932, Syracuse, New York[1]) is an eminent botanist and an entomologist.

Career

Dr. Robinson's systematic knowledge encompasses many groups of plants and even some insects. But his real specialty is the sunflower family (Asteraceae) and the bryophytes. He has named or described over 2,800 new species and subtribes, that is more than one tenth of the number of species in the Asteraceae. This figure is also about one quarter of the number of flowering plants, described by Linnaeus. Few taxonomists have ever done better.

He has written over 650 publications, mainly on the Asteraceae, mosses (Bryophyta), Marchantiophyta, and the long-legged fly family Dolichopodidae (describing over 200 new species and 6 new genera, such as Harmstonia and Nanomyina) and many other subjects.

He received a B.S. from Ohio University in 1955, an M.S. from the University of Tennessee in 1957, a Ph.D. from Duke University in 1960.

After a short stint (from 1960 to 1962) as assistant professor at Wofford College (Spartanburg, South Carolina), he became Associate Curator of lower plants at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington (1960–1962). Later he was appointed Associate Curator (1964–1971) and finally Curator of Botany from 1971.

Research

Together with collaborators, he investigated the taxonomy of several bryophytes, green algae (co-naming a new genus Struveopsis), vines of family Hippocrateaceae (nom. cons.) (now a synonym of the staff vine family Celastraceae).

He made a study of the phylogeny of the genus Houstonia, madder family (Rubiaceae).

In 1974 he named a new subtribe Luziolinae of oryzoid (= rice-like) grasses Poaceae, but this was not supported by a recent molecular study (Duvall et al., 1993).

He named the small genus Synanthes (P.Burns-Balogh, H.Rob. & Mercedes S.Foster) of epiphytic orchids from Paraguay.

He also named 32 new species from the bromeliad family (Bromeliaceae), mostly in the genera Navia and Lindmania, Connellia, and Cottendorfia, such as Navia albiflora L.B.Smith, Steyermark & Robinson and Navia aliciae L.B.Smith, Steyermark & Robinson. In 1999 he merged Pepinia into Pitcairnia at generic level. (Harvard Papers in Botany Vol. 4 no.1 195 – 202). He made several illustrations for the Catalog of Botanical Illustrations, Smithsonian Institution, such as for Brewcaria duidensis (Bromeliaceae).

But his major interest went to the sunflower family (Asteraceae). In the neotropical tribe Eupatorieae (Asteraceae), Robinson (with co-worker King) has named at least one species in 27 of the genera. He later worked on the reorganization of the tribes Senecioneae, Heliantheae, Liabeae and lately Vernonieae.

The tribe Eupatorieae is known for the many secondary metabolite chemicals such as alkaloids, (poly)acetylenes, and terpenoids (see Ichthyothere). Robinson has made a detailed study of these chemicals, together with R.M. King and Ferdinand Bohlmann. This resulted in a large number of publications mostly in the journal Phytochemistry in the 1970s and 1980s.

In 1970 Robinson and King stressed the need for diagnostic character analysis in his classic article entitled The new synantherology (Taxon 19: 6-11).

In 1986 he gave a critical but constructive opinion on cladistics in the article. ”A key to the common errors of cladistics”. (Taxon 35: 309-311).

The genus Robinsonecio T.M.Barkley & J.P.Janovec (Asteraceae) is named for him.

Selected works

References

  1. ↑ Robert DeFilipps (July–September 2003). "Botany Profile: A Colossus of the Compositae" (PDF). The Plant Press. Department of Systematic Biology - Botany & the U.S. National Herbarium, Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.
  2. ↑ "Author Query for 'H.Rob.'". International Plant Names Index.