David Mabberley | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | May 1948 (1948-05) (age 77) Tetbury, Gloucestershire, England |
| Other names | David John Mabberley |
| Education | Rendcomb College |
| Alma mater | |
| Known for | The plant-book |
| Awards |
|
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Botany |
| Doctoral advisor | E. J. H. Corner |
| Author abbrev. (botany) | Mabb. |
ProfessorDavid John MabberleyAM, (born May 1948) is a British-born Australianbotanist, educator and writer. Among his varied scientific interests is thetaxonomy of tropical plants, especially plants of the familiesLabiatae,Malvaceae,Meliaceae andRutaceae (in particularCitrus). The third edition of his plant dictionaryThe plant-book. A portable dictionary of the vascular plants was published in 2008 asMabberley's Plant-book, for which he was awarded theEngler Medal in Silver in 2009. As of June 2017Mabberley's Plant-book is in its fourth edition.
Born inTetbury, Gloucestershire, England, Mabberley won a scholarship toRendcomb College,Cirencester where he was inspired by biology master, Christopher Swaine,[1] then an open scholarship toSt Catherine's College, Oxford, where his tutor wasBarrie Juniper and he graduated B.A. in 1970 and M.A. in 1974. The rest of the five making up his year in biology wereRobin McCleery,John Moore-Bick,Stuart Pimm andPeter Taylor, with whom Mabberley organised the Oxford University Expedition to the Cherangani Hills, Kenya (1969). Although he intended to work for a doctorate under the cytologistC. D. Darlington he was inspired to move toSidney Sussex College, Cambridge, under the supervision ofE. J. H. Corner, leading to a PhD in 1973 and D.Phil. (Oxon) in 1975.[2] In 1973 Mabberley was elected the first Claridge Druce junior research fellow atSt John's College, Oxford, before being appointed in 1976 to a tutorial fellowship atWadham College, Oxford (linked to a university lecturership in the Department of Botany, later Plant Sciences, where he set up the "Mablab" with graduate students and post-doctoral research workers from around the world). Doctoral students includedAlistair Hay,Martin Cheek,William Hawthorne, Rowan Jenkins and Balangoda Singhakumara. andRogier Petrus Johannes de Kok.
He served asDean of Wadham College for many years. Some of the social aspects of Mabberley's period as Dean of Wadham are dramatized inStephen Henighan's novelThe World of After.[3] Mabberley was senior proctor at Oxford 1988–1989, later becoming Curator of the Oxford University Herbaria. He has also served in various capacities at numerous universities around the world, includingUniversity of Paris (France),University of Leiden (the Netherlands),University of Peradeniya (Sri Lanka),University of Kuwait,Western Sydney University andMacquarie University (both in New South Wales, Australia).[4] From 1995 he held a chair at theUniversity of Leiden, where he is now Emeritus Professor.[5]
Mabberley moved to Australia late in 1996 and ran his own consultancy business there, one contract being as CEO ofGreening Australia. In 2004 he was appointed to the Orin and Althea Soest Chair in Horticultural Science at theUniversity of Washington, Seattle, US, where he was also Professor of Economic Botany in the College of Forest Resources.[6] During his tenure there, he oversaw the union of the Washington Park Arboretum, Center for Urban Horticulture, Union Bay Natural Area, Elisabeth C. Miller Library and Otis Douglas Hyde Herbarium as the University of Washington Botanic Gardens, of which he was the founding director. In March 2008 he took up the newly created position of Keeper of the Herbarium, Library, Art and Archives at theRoyal Botanic Gardens, Kew.[7]
Mabberley has performed fieldwork in many countries over several decades: Kenya (1969, 1970–71), Uganda (1970–71), Tanzania (1971–72), Madagascar (1971), Malaysia, Singapore & Indonesia (1974, 1981), Papua New Guinea (1974, 1989), Seychelles (1978), Panamá (1978–79), Portugal (1984–96), New Caledonia (1984), New Zealand (1990), Sri Lanka (1991), Hawai’i (1998), Cape York, Australia (Royal Geographical Society of Queensland expedition, 2002), Malaysia (2003, 2007), Vietnam (2005), China (2006, 2008), India (2019), Japan (2019).
During research for his PhD dissertation, he travelled widely and collected plants throughout eastern Africa andMadagascar (1970–2), making particularly significant pioneering collections in theUkaguru Mountains,Tanzania, where he collected at least 14 species of plants (and one new snail species) new to science and restricted to that range. These include a species of coffee, a giant lobelia (Lobelia sancta (Campanulaceae)), a (hairy) balsam (Impatiens ukagurensis (Balsaminaceae)), besidesKeetia davidii (Rubiaceae) andSenecio mabberleyi (Compositae), both named after him. He is also commemorated inAglaia mabberleyana (Meliaceae) from Borneo,Begonia mabberleyana (Begoniaceae) from Sulawesi andCinnamomum mabberleyi (Lauraceae) from Vietnam and Laos, besidesHomalomena davidiana (Araceae) andHarpullia mabberleyana (Sapindaceae), both fromNew Guinea,Grewia mabberleyana[8] (Malvaceae) fromMadagascar andHibiscus mabberleyi (Malvaceae) fromMauritius, but extinct in the wild.
In August 2011 Mabberley became executive director of the New South Wales Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust, Australia.[9][10] In this capacity he was responsible for the management ofSydney's Royal Botanic Garden and Domain, The National Herbarium of New South Wales,The Australian Botanic Garden at Mount Annan nearCamden and TheBlue Mountains Botanic Garden, Mount Tomah, today comprising Botanic Gardens of Sydney. He left the post in September 2013[11] and shortly afterwards was elected to an Emeritus fellowship[12] atWadham College, Oxford.[4] In honour of his seventieth birthday, colleagues and former students prepared a Festschrift,[13] presented to him at Singapore Botanic Gardens, 27 September 2019. In recognition of his work and achievements, he was appointed Director Emeritus,[14] Botanic Gardens of Sydney in 2024.
His archive, especially that relating toMabberley’s plant-book is housed at theNational Botanic Garden of Wales, of which he was a Trustee 2008-2011 and is an Honorary Fellow since November 2018.
Among the awards he has received are the JoséCuatrecasas Medal for Excellence in Tropical Botany and thePeter Raven Award (by theAmerican Society of Plant Taxonomists "to a plant systematist who has made successful efforts to popularize botany to non-scientists"), both in 2004. In 2006 he was awarded theLinnean Medal of theLinnean Society of London and, in 2011, the Robert Allerton Award for Excellence in Tropical Botany of theNational Tropical Botanical Garden, USA.[15] He is a Corresponding Member, American Society of Plant Taxonomists (since 1999) and Fellow, Indian Botanical Society (since 2015).
From 1993 to 1996 he served as President of theSociety for the History of Natural History, and in 2025 was awarded the society's Founders Medal.[16]
In 2005 he was elected President of theIAPT, and in 2010 was elected the chairman of its General Committee.[16]
In 2016 he was appointed aMember of the Order of Australia for significant service to horticultural science, particularly to plant taxonomy and tropical botany, as an academic, researcher and author.[4]
In 2018 he was presented with the award ofDoctor of Science (DSchonoris causa) by the Vice-Chancellor ofMacquarie University in recognition of his outstanding contribution to horticultural science.[17]
