Person
Swinbourne, Robert Frederick George (1936 - 2015)
FLS
- Born
- 31 July 1936
Hurstville, New South Wales, Australia - Died
- 2015
Adelaide, South Australia, Australia - Occupation
- Horticultural botanist
Summary
Robert Swinbourne was a horticultural botanist whose interests included the family Geraniaceae and the history of horticulture in South Australia. He described and registered many Pelargonium hybrids. In the early 1960s he was on the staff of the herbarium in Alice Springs. Specimens collected during this time are now in the Northern Territory Herbarium. Between 1966 and the mid-1980s he worked at the Adelaide Botanic Gardens. Swinbourne served as President of the Australian Geranium Council and was a leading member of other plant societies reflecting his interests in carnivorous plants, begonias and ferns. Under the pseudonym 'Ptilotus" he made regular contributions to the magazine Your Garden. His history of the nursery trade in South Australia, Years of endeavour, was published in 1982.
Details
Chronology
- 1962 - 2015
- Career position - Member, Royal Society of South Australia
- 1962 - 2015
- Career position - Fellow, Linnean Society of New South Wales
- 1966 - 1980
- Career position - Botanist, Adelaide Botanic Gardens
- 1970 - 2015
- Career position - Fellow, The Linnean Society of London (FLS)
Related entries
Published resources
Books
- Swinbourne, Robert F. G., Years of Endeavour: An historical record of the Nurseries, Nurserymen, Seedsmen, and Horticultural retail outlets of South Australia (Adelaide: South Australian Association of Nurserymen, 1982), 200 pp. Details
Journal Articles
- Barker, Robyn, 'R. F. G. Swinbourne (1936 - 2015)', Australasian Systematic Botany Society Newsletter, 166 (2016), 34-6. Details
Helen Cohn
Last modified: 20 February 2020