- Leonard Cockayne
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Dr Leonard Cockayne FRS[1] (7 April 1855 – 8 July 1934) is regarded as New Zealand's greatest botanist and a founder of modern science in New Zealand.[2]
Contents
Biography
He was born in Sheffield, England where he attended Wesley College. He travelled to Australia in 1877 and shortly moved on to New Zealand where he became established as a botanist.
In June 1901, he attended the first conference of horticulturists in New Zealand at Dunedin where he presented a paper on the plants of the Chatham Islands and advocated the establishment of experimental plant research stations in New Zealand. This helped to establish Cockayne's reputation.
Cockayne was a member of the 1907 Sub-Antarctic Islands Scientific Expedition. The main aim of the expedition was to extend the magnetic survey of New Zealand by investigating Auckland and Campbell Islands but botanical, biological and zoological surveys were also conducted. The voyage also resulted in rescue of the castaways of the shipwreck the Dundonald in the Auckland Islands.
Cockayne's major contributions to botany were in plant ecology and in his theories of hybridisation. In 1899 he published the first New Zealand account of successional changes in vegetation. Between 1897 and 1930 he published 49 papers in the Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand.[3]
He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1912 on the proposal of Sir J. D. Hooker and was awarded the Hector Memorial Medal in that same year. In 1914 he was awarded the Hutton Memorial Medal.
The Cockayne Reserve in Christchurch and the Cockayne Nature Walk near Otira on the West Coast are both named after him.
Bibliography
- New Zealand Plants and Their Story, 1910
- Observations Concerning Evolution, Derived from Ecological Studies in New Zealand
- Vegetation of New Zealand
- The Cultivation of New Zealand Plants 1923
- Trees of New Zealand (with E. Phillips Turner)
- Report on the dune-areas of New Zealand: their geology, botany and reclamation.
- Report on a botanical survey of Stewart Island
- Cockayne, Leonard (1921) (in de) (html). Die Vegetation der Erde. Sammlung pflanzengeographischer monographien. XIV: The Vegetation of New Zealand. Leipzig: W. Engelmann. http://www.google.com/books?id=gu9aAAAAQAAJ. Retrieved 4 April 2009.
References
- ^ Hill, A. W. (1935). "Leonard Cockayne. 1855-1934". Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society 1 (4): 442. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1935.0008.
- ^ Thomson, A.D.. "Biography of Leaonard Cockayne". The Encyclopedia of New Zealand. http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/3c25/1. Retrieved 26 September 2011.
- ^ "Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand 1868-1961". National Library of New Zealand. http://rsnz.natlib.govt.nz/search/page.html?queryString=name:(name000297)&startIndex=0&pageLength=25. Retrieved 26 September 2011.
- ^ "Author Query". International Plant Names Index. http://www.ipni.org/ipni/authorsearchpage.do.
External links
- the 1966 Encyclopaedia of New Zealand
- Leonard Cockayne: Horticulturist
- Biography in Botanical Discovery in New Zealand: The Resident Botanists by W. R. B. Oliver
Categories:- Botanists with author abbreviations
- 1855 births
- 1934 deaths
- English emigrants to New Zealand
- New Zealand botanists
- People from Sheffield
- Veitch Memorial Medal recipients
- Fellows of the Royal Society
- People educated at Wesley College, Sheffield
- British botanist stubs
- Botanist stubs
- New Zealand people stubs
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