Ronald Melville

Ronald Melville (1903-1985) was an English botanist, based at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. He is chiefly remembered for his wartime research into rosehips as a source of vitamin C, prompted by the epidemic of scurvy amongst children owing to the reduced importation of fresh fruit. His research concluded that hips from the common Dog Rose "Rosa canina" held the highest concentration of the vitamin. In later years, he compiled the world's first "Red Data Book", published in 1970, listing all known threatened plants. Melville was made a Fellow of the Linnean Society in 1938. The tree "Acacia melvillei" is named in his honour.

Publications

*On the discrimination of species in hybrid swarms with special reference to "Ulmus" and the nomenclature of "U. minor" (Mill.) and "U. carpinifolia" (Gled.). "Taxon" 27: 345-351, 1978.
*"Ulmus canescens": an eastern Mediterranean Elm. "Kew Bulletin": 499-502, 1975.
*"The Story of Plants and their Uses to Man" (co-author John Hutchinson), (1948).
*The Elms of the Himalaya (co-author Hans Heybroek), "Kew Bulletin" No. 26 (1), (1971).

External links

* [http://www.kew.org/heritage/people/melville.html] Royal Botanic Gardens Kew: Botanists: Melville.