Person

Dockrill, Alick William (1915 - 2011)

Born
21 January 1915
Enmore, New South Wales, Australia
Died
19 September 2011
Occupation
Orchidologist and Plant taxonomist

Summary

Alick Dockrill, despite having no formal qualifications in botany, earned a reputation as an expert on orchids, particularly those of northern Australia. His lifelong interest in orchids began as a young boy. Among the first people to encourage this interest was Hermann Rupp. After moving to Cairns in 1957 Dockrill embarked on the task of illustrating and describing all the orchids of the north. He published descriptions of 20 new species and four genera of orchid. His first paper, issued in 1954, was followed by more than 80 published in Australia's major orchid journals and in those of naturalists clubs. He also wrote four books illustrated with his careful and accurate line drawings. For five years Dockrill was Keeper of the Lae Herbarium, Papua New Guinea, after which he was for 10 years an herbarium technician at the Forest Research Institute (later CSIRO Division of Forest Research) in Atherton. In 1991 he received the Award of Honour from the Australian Orchid Foundation. Dockrill donated his personal herbarium of over 1,600 specimens to the Australian National Herbarium in Atherton which, in 2008, amalgamated with other herbaria in northern Queensland to become the Australian Tropical Herbarium. The genus Dockrillia and several species were named in his honour.

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Details

Chronology

1957
Life event - Moved to Cairns, Queensland
1966 - 1970
Career position - Keeper, Lae Herbarium, Papua New Guinea
1970 - 1980
Career position - Herbarium Technician, CSIRO Atherton Herbarium
1980
Life event - Retired
1991
Award - Award of Honour, Australian Orchid Foundation

Related Corporate Bodies

Published resources

Books

  • Dockrill, A., A checklist of the orchidaceous plants of North Queensland ([Cairns?]: North Queensland Naturalists Club, 1966), 21 pp. Details
  • Dockrill, A. W., Australasian Sarcanthinae; a review of the subtribe Sarcanthinae (Orchidaceae) in Australia and New Zealand (Sydney: Australian Native Orchid Society, 1967), 41 pp. Details
  • Dockrill, Alick, Australian indigenous orchids, volume 1: the epiphytes, the tropical terrestrial species (Sydney: Society for Growing Australian Plants, 1969), 825 pp. Details

Resources

See also

  • Fagg, Murray, 'Dockrill, Alick William (1915 - 2011)', Australian Plant Collectors and Illustrators, Council of Heads of Australian Herbaria (CHAH), 2010, https://anbg.gov.au/biography/dockrill-alick.html. Details
  • Lavarack, Bill, With strange device: a history of the discovery of tropical Australia's orchids (Buderim, Qld: Peter S. Lavarack, 2013), 104 pp. Details

Helen Cohn

Created: 27 February 2025

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