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William T. Stearn

January 22, 2023

"William Stearn" redirects here. For other people with a similar name, see William Stern (disambiguation).

William Thomas Stearn /stɜːrn/ CBE FLS VMH (16 April 1911 – 9 May 2001) was a British botanist. Born in Cambridge in 1911, he was largely self-educated, and developed an early interest in books and natural history. His initial work experience was at a Cambridge bookshop, but he also had a position as an assistant in the university botany department. At the age of 29 he married Eldwyth Ruth Alford, who later became his collaborator, and he died in London in 2001.

William Thomas Stearn

CBE FLS VMH
W. T. Stearn, 1974
Born(1911-04-16)16 April 1911
Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England
Died9 May 2001(2001-05-09) (aged 90)
Kingston upon Thames, London, England
EducationCambridge High School for Boys
Known forBotanical taxonomy, history of botany, Botanical Latin, horticulture
Spouse
Eldwyth Ruth Alford
​
(m. 1940)​
Children3
AwardsVeitch Memorial Medal (1964), Victoria Medal of Honour (1965), Linnean Medal (1976), Commander of the Swedish Order of the Star of the North (1980), Engler Gold Medal (1993), Commander of the Order of the British Empire (1997), Asa Gray Award (2000)
Scientific career
InstitutionsBotany School, Cambridge, Lindley Library, Natural History Museum
InfluencesAlbert Seward, Agnes Arber, John Gilmour, Humphrey Gilbert-Carter, Harry Godwin, E. A. Bowles
InfluencedGhillean Prance, Peter H. Raven, Norman Robson, Max Walters, Vernon Heywood, John Akeroyd
Author abbrev. (botany)Stearn

While at the bookshop, he was offered a position as a librarian at the Royal Horticultural Society in London (1933–1952). From there he moved to the Natural History Museum as a scientific officer in the botany department (1952–1976). After his retirement, he continued working there, writing, and serving on a number of professional bodies related to his work, including the Linnean Society, of which he became president. He also taught botany at Cambridge University as a visiting professor (1977–1983).

Stearn is known for his work in botanical taxonomy and botanical history, particularly classical botanical literature, botanical illustration and for his studies of the Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus. His best known books are his Dictionary of Plant Names for Gardeners, a popular guide to the scientific names of plants, and his Botanical Latin for scientists.

Stearn received many honours for his work, at home and abroad, and was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1997. Considered one of the most eminent British botanists of his time, he is remembered by an essay prize in his name from the Society for the History of Natural History, and a named cultivar of Epimedium, one of many genera he produced monographs on. He is the botanical authority for over 400 plants that he named and described.

Life

Childhood
 
Springfield Road, Cambridge, looking north. No. 37 is the last house on the left
 
Cambridge High School for Boys 1900
 
1 Trinity Street, Site of Bowes & Bowes, now Cambridge University Press

Childhood

William Thomas Stearn was born at 37 Springfield Road, Chesterton, Cambridge, England, on 16 April 1911, the eldest of four sons, to Thomas Stearn (1871 or 1872–1922) and Ellen ("Nellie") Kiddy (1886–1986) of West Suffolk.[1] His father worked as a coachman to a Cambridge doctor. Chesterton was then a village on the north bank of the River Cam, about two miles north of Cambridge's city centre, where Springfield Road ran parallel to Milton Road to the west.[2] William Stearn's early education was at the nearby Milton Road Junior Council School (see image).[a] Despite not having any family background in science (though he recalled that his grandfather was the university rat-catcher)[5] he developed a keen interest in natural history and books at an early age. He spent his school holidays on his uncle's Suffolk farm, tending cows grazing by the roadside where he would observe the wild flowers of the hedgerows and fields.[6] Stearn's father died suddenly in 1922 when Stearn was only eleven, leaving his working-class family in financial difficulties as his widow (Stearn's mother) had no pension.[7]

That year, William Stearn succeeded in obtaining a scholarship to the local Cambridge High School for Boys on Hills Road, close to the Cambridge Botanic Garden, which he attended for eight years till he was 18.[1] The school had an excellent reputation for biology education,[8] and while he was there, he was encouraged by Mr Eastwood, a biology teacher who recognised his talents.[9] The school also provided him with a thorough education in both Latin and Greek.[9] He became secretary of the school's Natural History Society, won an essay prize from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and spent much of his time at the Botanic Garden.[b] Stearn also gained horticultural experience by working as a gardener's boy during his school holidays, to supplement the family income.[2][11]

Stearn attended evening lectures on paleobotany given by Albert Seward (chair of botany at Cambridge University 1906–1936), and Harry Godwin.[12] Seward was impressed by the young Stearn, giving him access to the herbarium of the Botany School (now Department of Plant Sciences—see 1904 photograph) and allowing him to work there as a part-time research assistant.[2] Later, Seward also gave Stearn access to the Cambridge University Library to pursue his research.[1][8]

Later life

Stearn was largely self-educated and his widowed mother worked hard to support him while at school but could not afford a university education for him, there being no grants available then.[13] When not at the Botany School, he attended evening classes to develop linguistic and bibliographic skills. His classes there included German and the classics.[7] He obtained his first employment at the age of 18 in 1929, a time of high unemployment, to support himself and his family. He worked as an apprentice antiquarian bookseller and cataloguer in the second-hand section at Bowes & Bowes bookshop,[c] 1 Trinity Street (now Cambridge University Press), between 1929 and 1933 where he was able to pursue his passion for bibliography.[15] During his employment there, he spent much of his lunchtimes, evenings and weekends, at the Botany School and Botanic Garden.[8][11] This was at a time when botany was thriving at Cambridge under the leadership of Seward and Humphrey Gilbert-Carter.[13]

On 3 August 1940, he married Eldwyth Ruth Alford (1910–2013), by whom he had a son and two daughters, and who collaborated with him in much of his work.[13][16] Ruth Alford was a secondary school teacher from Tavistock, Devon, the daughter of Roger Rice Alford a Methodist preacher and mayor of Tavistock. When their engagement was announced in The Times, Stearn was vastly amused to see that he was described as a "Fellow of the Linen Society", a typographical error for Linnean Society.[5] Stearn was brought up an Anglican, but was a conscientious objector and after the Second World War he became a Quaker.[15] In his later years, following official retirement in 1976 he continued to live in Kew, Richmond.[2] His entry in Who's Who lists his interests as "gardening and talking".[17] He died on 9 May 2001 of pneumonia at Kingston Hospital, Kingston upon Thames, at the age of 90.[7][15][18] His funeral took place on 18 May at Mortlake crematorium. He left three children (Roger Thomas Stearn, Margaret Ruth Stearn and Helen Elizabeth Stearn) and an estate of £461,240.[1] His wife, whose 100th birthday was celebrated at the Linnean Society in 2010, lived to the age of 103.[19]

Professor Stearn had a reputation for his encyclopedic knowledge, geniality, wit and generosity with his time and knowledge, being always willing to contribute to the work of others.[20] He had a mischievous sense of fun and was famous for his anecdotes while lecturing,[21] while his colleagues recalled that "he had a happy genius for friendship".[22] He was described as having a striking figure, "a small man, his pink face topped with a thatch of white hair",[9] and earned the nickname of "Wumpty" after his signature of "Wm. T. Stearn".[23][24]

Career

Institutions
 
Botany School, Cambridge
 
Entrance to the Royal Horticultural Society, Vincent Square, London. Sign to right of entrance provides information on the Lindley Library
 
Natural History Museum, Kensington
 
Entrance, Linnean Society, Piccadilly

Cambridge years (1929–1933)

Stearn began his career as a gardener at Sidney Sussex College after leaving school at 13. He then became a bookseller at Bowes & Bowes. While working at the bookshop he made many friends among the Cambridge botanists and participated in their activities, including botanical excursions. In addition to Professor Seward, those influencing him included the morphologist Agnes Arber, Humphrey Gilbert-Carter the first scientific director of the Botanic Garden, John Gilmour then curator of the university herbarium and later director of the Garden (1951–1973), the horticulturalist E. A. Bowles (1865–1954), who became his patron,[15] Harry Godwin, then a research fellow and later professor and Tom Tutin who was working with Seward at that time.[2] Seward gave him full research facilities in the herbarium. He continued his research, visiting the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, in 1930, at the age of 19, and also spent two weeks at the herbarium of the Musée National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris, with the aid of a £15 grant from the Royal Society to study Epimedium.[25] Also in 1930, the Fifth International Botanical Congress was held at Cambridge, and Stearn was able to attend.[12] During this time he commuted between the bookshop, the Botany School, Botanic Garden and home by bicycle, his preferred means of transportation throughout his life.[8]

Lindley Library, Royal Horticultural Society (1933–1952)

In 1933, H. R. Hutchinson, who was the Librarian at the Lindley Library, Royal Horticultural Society's (RHS) in London, was due to retire. John Gilmour, now assistant director at the Kew Gardens, put forward Stearn's name, together with Bowles, a vice-president of the Society, who had discovered Stearn at the bookshop. Stearn was 22 when he began work at the library, initially as assistant librarian, before taking over Hutchinson's position after six months. He later explained his appointment at such a young age as being the result of World War I: "All the people who should have had those jobs were dead."[5] There he collaborated with Bowles on a number of plant monographs, such as Bowles' Handbook of Crocus[26] and their work on Anemone japonica (Anemone hupehensis var. japonica).[27][d] Written in 1947, it is still considered one of the most comprehensive accounts of the origins and nomenclature of fall-blooming anemones.[29] Stearn was one of the last people to see Bowles alive,[30] and when Bowles died, Stearn wrote an appreciation of him,[31] and later contributed the entry on Bowles to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.[32] Much of his spare time was spent studying at the Kew Gardens.[11]

The Lindley Library, the largest horticultural library in the world and named after the British botanist John Lindley (1799–1865), was established in 1868 by the acquisition of Lindley's 1,300 volumes upon his death.[2][33] It had recently undergone considerable change. In 1930, the library had been rehoused in a new floor added to the society's Vincent Square headquarters, but the role of the library was somewhat downgraded. Frederick Chittenden had been appointed as Keeper of the Library (1930–1939), and Hutchinson reported directly to him. Stearn related that when he reported for duty, Hutchinson was completely unaware of the appointment of his new assistant.[12]

Lindley was one of Stearn's inspirations, also being a librarian who had a long association with the RHS. Lindley also bequeathed his herbarium to the Cambridge University Herbarium, where it now forms the Lindley Collection.[34] As Stearn remarked "I came to know his numerous publications and to admire the industry, tenacity and ability with which he undertook successfully so many different things".[35] Later Stearn would publish a major work on Lindley's life and work.[36] Lindley's contributions to horticultural taxonomy were matched only by those of Stearn himself.[5] Stearn soon set about using his antiquarian knowledge to reorganise the library, forming a pre-Linnean section.[9] Not long after his arrival the library acquired one of its largest collections, the Reginald Cory Bequest (1934),[37][38] which Stearn set about cataloguing on its arrival two years later, resulting in at least fifteen publications.[39]

While at the library he continued his self-education through evening classes, learning Swedish, and travelling widely. Stearn used his three-week annual leaves in the pre-war years to visit other European botanical libraries, botanic gardens, museums, herbaria and collections, as well as collecting plants, with special emphasis on Epimedium and Allium.[2] His travels took him to Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, and Sweden.[39]

War years (1941–1946)

The only break from this employment was the war years 1941–1946, leaving his assistant Ms. Cardew as acting librarian.[12] Initially Stearn served as an air raid warden, before enlisting. As a conscientious objector, he could not serve in a combatant role, but was accepted into the Royal Air Force (RAF) Medical Services, as he had previously worked with the St John Ambulance Brigade. He served in the RAF in both England, and Asia (India and Burma, where he worked in intelligence, and was awarded the Burma Star). While there he undertook studies of Indo-Malayan and Sikkim-Himalayan tropical vegetation,[8] carried out botanical explorations, taught biology to troops and began work on his Botanical Latin.[e] His wartime observations led to collaborative publications such as An enumeration of the flowering plants of Nepal (1978–1982),[41] Beautiful Indian Trees (2nd ed. 1954),[42] as well as works on Himalayan species of Allium.[43] On returning from the war, Stearn and his new wife, Eldwyth Ruth Stearn, were obliged to live in the Lindley Library for a while till they found a more permanent home, due to the acute housing shortage in London.[9][12]

Natural History Museum (1952–1976)

From the Lindley Library, Stearn (see 1950 Photograph) moved to the Botany Department at the Natural History Museum, South Kensington[f] in 1952, and by the time he retired in 1976, he was the Senior Principal Scientific Officer there. He had now achieved his aim of becoming a research scientist, despite lack of formal qualifications, enabling him to spend more of his time collecting and studying plants.[9] During this time the museum was undergoing steady expansion, with new staff and programmes. At the museum he was put in charge of Section 3 of the General Herbarium (the last third of the Dicotyledons in the Bentham & Hooker system, i.e., Monochlamydae)[g] and floristic treatment of the regions of Europe, Jamaica, the United States, Australia and Nepal, including work on the museum's Flora of Jamaica[44] and the Nepal flora he started work on during the war.[41][16] Seven volumes of the Flora of Jamaica had appeared prior to the Second World War. Although the project was revived after the war, and Stearn carried out six months of field work in Jamaica, it never came to fruition; no further volumes appeared. In Jamaica, Stearn followed in the footsteps of Sir Hans Sloane (1660–1753), whose collection had been left to the Natural History Museum.[9][45] Stearn's generic work at the museum concentrated on Allium,[46] Lilium and Paeonia.[5] He continued to travel widely, with field work in Europe (particularly Greece), Australia, and the United States,[9] and published 200 papers during his twenty-four years at the museum, and although the library was not his responsibility, he spent much time there adding written notes to many of the critical texts.[23]

While at the museum, Stearn became increasingly involved in the work of the Linnean Society during his Kensington years. He was also offered the George A. Miller professorship of botany at the University of Illinois (1966), but felt he would be unable to leave his commitments in London.[1][2] At the time of his retirement in 1976, he was still using a fountain pen as his only means of communication and scholarship, a fact commemorated by his retirement present of a Mont Blanc pen capable of writing for long periods without refills.[23]

Retirement (1976–2001)

Following his retirement on 30 November 1976 he continued to work, both at the museum and at the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, where his home at 17 High Park Road, Kew Gardens, Richmond (see image), gave him access to the herbarium and library, a short bicycle trip away.[8] Indeed, 35 percent of his total publications appeared in the quarter century of his retirement.[47] He was commissioned to write a history of the museum for its centenary (1981),[48] although he did so with some difficulty, due to deadlines and budget constraints.[49] The task, which took three years, was made more difficult for him by the museum's decision to censor his critical comments.[23] He continued his association with the Lindley Library all his life, being an active committee member[9] and regularly attended RHS flower shows even after he was barely able to walk.[5]

Sojourn in Greece

As a student of the classics he was passionate about Greece, its mountains and plants (such as Paeonia)[50] and all things Greek, both ancient and modern.[51] The Stearns had formed a friendship with Constantine Goulimis and Niki and Angelos Goulandris, founders of the Goulandris Museum of Natural History[52] in Kifissia, Athens. Stearn first met the Goulandris' in 1967, and offered practical help with their museum. He also stayed with them when he and his wife visited Greece.[13] Niki Goulandris illustrated both Wild Flowers of Greece that Goulimis and Stearn wrote in 1968,[53] as well as his Peonies of Greece (1984).[54][55] The latter work typified Stearn's encyclopedic approach, including topics such as mythology and herbalism in addition to taxonomy.[56] Stearn then took on the editorship of Annales Musei Goulandris,[57] the scientific journal of the museum (1976–1999), succeeding Werner Greuter, the first editor, having been instrumental in getting the journal launched in 1973.[1][2] Eldwyth Ruth Stearn took on the job of compiling the indexes. When he retired from this position he was 88, and was succeeded by John Akeroyd.[13][58] He was a liberal contributor to the journal, and during this time he and Eldwyth Ruth Stearn undertook their translation of The Greek Plant World in Myth, Art, and Literature (1993).[59]

Societies and appointments

Stearn was a member of the Linnean Society[h] for many years, becoming a fellow as early as 1934. He served as botanical curator 1959–1985, council member 1959–1963 and as vice-president 1961–1962 and president 1979–1982,[15][60] producing a revised and updated history of the society in 1988.[61] He also served as president of the Garden History Society and the Ray Society (1975–1977). The Royal Horticultural Society had made him an honorary fellow in 1946 and in 1986 he became a vice-president. Stearn became a member of the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI) in 1954,[62] joining the Maps Committee the following year to prepare their Atlas of the British Flora (1962).[63][64] He remained on that committee till 1968, when it became the Records Committee. For 40 years he was the BSBI referee for Allium.[16] While at the Lindley Library, he became a founding member of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History (later, the Society for the History of Natural History) in 1936, was one of its most active publishing members based on his cataloguing work at the library,[12] and published a history of the society for their 50th anniversary in 1986.[8][65] Other societies on which he served include the British Society for the History of Science (vice-president), the British Society for the History of Medicine (Council), the Garden History Society (president 1977–1982)[8][9] and was a corresponding member of the Botanical Society of America.[66]

Stearn was appointed Sandars Reader in Bibliography, University of Cambridge in 1965 and from 1977 to 1983 he was visiting professor at Cambridge University's Department of Botany, and also Visiting Professor in Botany at Reading University 1977–1983, and then Honorary Research Fellow (1983–).[67] He was also a fellow of the Institute of Biology (1967) and was elected an Honorary Fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge in 1968.[1]

Work

William Stearn was the author of nearly 500 publications, including his autobiography.[68][i] These included monographs, partial floras, books on botanical illustration, scholarly editions of historical botanical texts, dictionaries, bibliographies and botanical histories.[5]

Early years

 
Epimedium, a genus that occupied Stearn all his life
 
Allium farreri, Stearn's first described taxon

During Stearn's initial four years in Cambridge (1929–1933), he published twenty-four papers, predominantly in the Gardeners' Chronicle and Gardening Illustrated and the Journal of Botany,[1][9] his first in 1929. While working as a gardener's boy during school holidays he had observed a specimen of Campanula pusilla (Campanula cochleariifolia) with a distorted corolla. He then described and published the first appearance of the causative agent, the mould Peronospora corollaea, in Britain, using the facilities of the Botany library.[8][69]

At the Botanic Garden he developed a special interest in Vinca, Epimedium, Hosta and Symphytum, all of which he published monographs on.[70] A series of botanical publications followed,[71] starting with a new species of Allium (A. farreri Stearn, 1930).[72][j] Stearn repeatedly returned to the genus Allium, and was considered a world expert on it; many species bear his name.[16][56][k] 1930 would also see his first bibliographic work, on the botanist Reginald Farrer,[75][76] whom he named Allium farreri after,[76] and also described Rosa farreri (1933)[77] and other species named after Farrer. It was while he was compiling Farrer's works in 1930 that he came across the latter's work, The English Rock-Garden (1919)[78] and its account of Barren-worts (Epimedium), and kindled a lifetime interest in the genus.[24] From 1932, he produced a series of papers on this genus,[79] studying it at Cambridge, Kew and Paris. It became one of the genera which he was best known, and many species of which now bear his name.[80][24] Epimedium and the related woodland perennial Vancouveria (Berberidaceae) would be the subject of his first monograph (1938)[81] and were genera to which he would return at the end of his life.[82] At the time the taxonomy of this genus was very confused, and with the help of the Cambridge Herbarium he obtained specimens from all over Europe to produce a comprehensive monograph.[11] The work was so thorough that it was mistakenly considered a doctoral thesis by other botanists. He also began a series of contributions to the catalogue of the Herbarium, together with Gilmour and Tutin.[2]

Later work

After moving to London, Stearn produced a steady output of publications during his years at the Royal Horticultural Society's Lindley Library (1933–1952). These covered a wide range of topics from bibliography to plant nomenclature, taxonomy and garden plants, with a particular emphasis on Vinca, Epimedium and Lilium.[83] Within two years of joining the library in 1933, he had produced his first major monograph, Lilies (1935),[84] in collaboration with Drysdale Woodcock and John Coutts.[56][l] This text, in an expanded and revised edition, as Woodcock and Stearn's Lilies of the World (1950)[87] became a standard work on the Liliaceae sensu lato.[56] While at the library he also continued his collaboration with his Cambridge colleagues, publishing catalogues of the Herbarium collections,[88] including the Catalogue of the Collections of the Herbarium of the University Botany School, Cambridge (1935).[89] The second task imposed on him at this time involved the RHS role in maintaining revision of the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (see Botanical taxonomy).

After his return to London in 1946, at the end of the Second World War, a number of major publications ensued, including Lilies of the World in 1950.[12] The RHS also imposed two major tasks on their librarian. In 1950, Frederick Chittenden, a previous director of RHS Wisley and Keeper of the Library, died leaving unfinished the four volume RHS Dictionary of Gardening that the society had commissioned from him before the war. The war had interrupted the work as many of the expected contributors were unavailable.[12] Stearn, together with Patrick Synge, the RHS Publications Editor, undertook to complete the work, particularly volume IV (R–Z), a task he completed within six months, with 50 new articles. The finished work was published in 1951[90] and not only did he undertake the role of editing this large work but his contributions covered 50 genera, 600 species and complex identification keys such as Solidago and Viola.[5] Since Stearn's entries in volume IV extended from Soldanella to Zygotritonia, he would jest that he was but "a peculiar authority on plants from 'So-' onwards". He issued a revised version in 1956 with Synge in which he added a further 86 articles.[91] His recollection of this task was that he acquired "that occupational hazard of compilers of encyclopaedias", encyclopedic knowledge.[5]

Many of Stearn's collaborative works used his bibliographic skills. While his genus monographs largely concentrated on Mediterranean flora, notably Epimedium,[82] Allium[92][93] and Paeonia,[94] he was also the author of species articles both popular and technical as well as a number of classical treatises.[18] In addition he produced floristic treatments of a number of regions such as Jamaica[95] and Nepal.[41] He also contributed to many national Florae as diverse as Bhutan[96] and Greece,[50] as well as major regional florae including the Flora Europaea[97] and European Garden Flora.[98]

While his output covered a wide range of topics, he is best known for his contributions to botanical history, taxonomy, botanical bibliography, and botanical illustration. Botanical Latin (four editions 1966–1992),[99] is his best known work,[15][21] having become a standard reference and described as both the bible of plant taxonomists and a philological masterwork.[5] It was begun during the war years and the first edition was basically a guide to Latin for botanists with no or limited knowledge of the language, which he described as a "do-it-yourself Latin kit" for taxonomists.[21] Later, the work evolved into an etymological dictionary,[100] but then Stearn learned that such a work had already been published in the Netherlands before the war. He then continued to expand it with the assistance of his wife and son, systematically collecting botanical terms from botanical texts. It is said that only he could have written this work, which explains not just the derivation of plant names but also the philological principles involved in forming those names.[9][21] The work is considered responsible for the continued survival of Latin as the lingua franca of botany.[5] In addition to this seminal text, he frequently delighted in the illumination that the classics could add to understanding plants and plant lore, such as his Five Brethren of the Rose (1965).[101]

His best known popular work is his Dictionary of Plant Names, which found its way into the libraries of most horticulturalists.[102] One of the focuses of his work at the Natural History Museum was the flora of the Caribbean, where he carried out field work.[11] Stearn continued to return to the Cambridge Botanic Garden, cared for his own garden and worked with the RHS to become an authority on horticulture as well as botany.[1] William Stearn collaborated with his wife, Eldwyth Ruth Stearn, on a number of his most important works, including Botanical Latin[103] and Dictionary of Plant Names and translating German botanical history into English.[104] Just before his death he completed a revision of his original Epimedium monograph.[82][56]

Botanical history

 
John Lindley, c. 1865

William Stearn wrote extensively on the history of botany and horticulture,[83][105] from Ancient Greece to his own times. He collected together J. E. Raven's 1976 J. H. Gray Lectures,[m] editing and annotating them as Plants and Plant Lore in Ancient Greece (1990).[107][n] In 1993, he and Eldwyth Ruth Stearn translated and expanded Baumann's Die griechische Pflanzenwelt in Mythos, Kunst und Literatur (1986) as The Greek Plant World in Myth, Art, and Literature.[104]

Stearn compiled a major work on the life of John Lindley[36] and produced an edited version of the classic book on herbals by Agnes Arber,[108] one of the influences of his Cambridge years, and whose obituary he would later write for The Times.[109] He also wrote a number of histories of the organisations he worked with[48][61] as well as a number of introductions and commentaries on classic botanical texts such as John Ray's Synopsis methodica stirpium Britannicarum (1691),[110][o] together with historical introductions to reference books, including Desmond's Dictionary of British and Irish Botanists (1994).[111][112]

In his Botanical Gardens and Botanical Literature in the Eighteenth Century (1961), Stearn provides some insight into his interpretation of botanical history:

The progress of botany, as of other sciences, comes from the interaction of so many factors that undue emphasis on any one can give a very distorted impression of the whole, but certainly among the most important of these for any given period are the prevailing ideas and intellectual attitudes, the assumptions and stimuli of the time, for often upon them depends the extent to which a particular study attracts an unbroken succession of men of industry and originality intent on building a system of knowledge and communicating it successfully to others of like mind.[113]

Linnaeus
 
Carl Linnaeus, 1775

Stearn's historical research is best known for his work on Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778), which he began while at the Natural History Museum, and which won him a number of awards at home and abroad. Between 1953 and 1994 he produced more than 20 works describing Linnaeus' life and work.[47][114][115]

Of Stearn's writings on Linnaeus, the most well known is his edition of the 1753 Species plantarum, published in facsimile by the Ray Society in 1957,[116] for which he wrote both a 176-page introduction and an appendix.[117][118][p] Concerned that Linnaeus' methods were imperfectly understood by his contemporaries, Stearn wrote that his introduction "provided concisely all the information about his Linnaeus' life, herbaria, publications, methodology etc. which a botanical taxonomist needs to know". The Times stated that no other botanist possessed the historical knowledge and linguistic skills to write, what is considered one of the classic studies of the Swedish naturalist and a highpoint of 20th century botanical scholarship. Subsequently, Stearn became a recognised authority on Linnaeus.[5] Stearn produced similar introductions to a number of other editions of Linnaeus' works, including Genera Plantarum,[119] Mantissa plantarum[120] and Flora Anglica.[21][q] Later, he would produce a bicentenary guide to Linnaeus (1978) for the Linnean Society.[1][7][124]

Although Stearn spent much of his life studying and writing about Linnaeus, he did not admire the man's character, describing him as mean—"a jealous egoist, with a driving ambition". When asked which botanists in history he did admire, he cited John Lindley, Carolus Clusius (1526–1609) and Olof Swartz (1760–1818).[9]

Botanical taxonomy

Stearn made major contributions to plant taxonomy and its history.[125] In 1950 the Seventh International Botanical Congress was held in Stockholm, and the RHS would have been represented by Chittenden, but he had been taken ill. Bowles then arranged for Stearn and Gilmour to represent the society in his stead.[13][r] The congress appointed a special committee to consider nomenclatural issues related to cultivated plants, which became known as the Committee for the Nomenclature of Cultivated Plants (the "Stockholm Committee"), with Stearn as secretary (1950–1953).[9][s] Stearn then proposed an International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants (the "Cultivated Code"), producing the first draft that day. The code was accepted in principle by the committee, conditional on its approval by a parallel committee of the International Horticultural Congress (the Horticultural Nomenclature Committee), which would next meet in London in 1952 (the "London Committee").[83] Later that year Stearn was also appointed secretary of the London Committee[126][t] so that he now represented both organisations. The two committees then met jointly on 22–24 November 1951 at the RHS building in London to draft a final joint proposal that was published by Stearn as secretary of an editorial committee and adopted by the 13th International Horticultural Congress the following year.[127]

The resulting code was formulated as a supplement to the existing International Code of Botanical Nomenclature.[128][129][u] Stearn introduced two important concepts, the terms "cultivar" and "grex". Cultivar, a term first proposed by L. H. Bailey in 1923,[130] refers to a distinctive genus or species variety raised or maintained in cultivation, such as Euphorbia dulcis "Chameleon". Grex (Latin for "flock" or "herd") refers to a group of hybrids of common parentage, such as Lilium Pink Perfection Group.[83] These concepts contributed a similar clarity to the nomenclature of garden or agricultural plants that Linnaeus had brought to the naming of native plants two centuries earlier.[5] Stearn continued to play an active part in the International Botanical Congresses over many years, where he was remembered for his rhetorical persuasion on nomenclatural matters.[131] He was also a pioneer in the application of computer-aided technology to (numerical taxonomy), as in his work on Columnea (1969).[15][132]

Botanical bibliography

Motivated by his interest in botanical history and taxonomy, Stearn devoted a considerable part of his output to botanical bibliography, including numerous papers and catalogues establishing the exact publication dates of books on natural history, particularly from the early nineteenth century, including William Herbert's work on Amaryllidaceae (1821, 1837)[128][8][133] and complete bibliographies of botanists such as John Gilmour (1989).[134] At the RHS library he transformed the minimalist card indexing by introducing British Museum rules and adding extensive bibliographic information.[12] He quickly realised that one of the major deficits in contemporary taxonomic nomenclature was a lack of precise dates of all the names, and set about rectifying this over a fifteen-year period, resulting in 86 publications, which was a major step in stabilising nomenclature. The importance of this lay in the rules of botanical nomenclature, which gives botanical names priority based on dates of publication.[12] He considered his most important contribution in this regard to be his elucidation[135] of the dating of the early 19th century collection of studies of Canary Islands flora by Webb and Berthelot (1836–1850).[136] Another important work from this period was on Ventenat's Jardin de la Malmaison (1803–1804), also published in the new Journal of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History.[137][12] In a number of instances his contributions to others' work went unacknowledged, particularly when he was younger, even though his introductions (often with the title "Revised and enlarged by W. T. Stearn") could be as lengthy as the texts they preceded.[138][v] His contributions to botanical bibliography and in particular the correct interpretation of historical texts from Linnaeus to Arber are considered of central importance to the field of taxonomy.[140]

Botanical illustration

 
Acacia cunninghamii in Florilegium[w]

Within a few years after Stearn returned from the war, his Art of Botanical Illustration (1950)[141][142] was published, remaining the standard work on the subject to this day. There was, however, some bibliographic confusion[12] – Collins, the publisher, had planned a book on botanical art for its New Naturalist series, but mistakenly commissioned both Stearn and the art historian Wilfred Blunt independently to produce the work. After the error was discovered the two decided to collaborate; Blunt wrote the work while Stearn edited and revised it. When it was published, Blunt's name was on the title page, while Stearn was only acknowledged in the preface.[x] The omission was not rectified till he prepared the second edition in 1994, although the preface reveals Stearn's extensive contribution.[7][12]

His continuing interest in botanical illustration led him to produce work on both historical[144] and contemporary artists,[145][146] including the Florilegium of Captain Cook and Joseph Banks from their first voyage (1768–1771) to the Pacific on the Endeavour,[147] the similar account of Ferdinand Bauer's later botanical expedition to Australia with Matthew Flinders on the Investigator (1801–1803),[148] and the work of illustrator Franz Bauer (the brother of Ferdinand).[149][150] Stearn's studies of Ferdinand Bauer's Flora Graeca (1806–1840) enabled him to combine his passion for Greece with that of illustration.[51][151] Other illustrators of this period that he wrote about included William Hooker.[152][12][y]

Awards

William Stearn received three honorary doctorates during his lifetime, from Leiden (D.Sc. 1960),[z] Cambridge (Sc.D. 1967), and Uppsala (Fil.Dr. 1972).[11][15] He was the Masters Memorial Lecturer, Royal Horticultural Society in 1964. In 1976 the Linnean Society awarded him their Gold Medal[aa][155] for his contributions to Linnean scholarship[117] and taxonomic botany.[60][156] In 1985 he was the Wilkins Lecturer of the Royal Society, entitled Wilkins, John Ray, and Carl Linnaeus.[157] In 1986 he received the Founder's Medal of the Society for the History of Natural History and in 1993 he received the Engler Gold Medal from the International Association for Plant Taxonomy.[158][ab] The Royal Horticultural Society awarded him both their Veitch Memorial Medal (1964) and Victoria Medal of Honour (VMH, 1965). In 2000 he received the Asa Gray Award, the highest honour of the American Society of Plant Taxonomists.[18] Stearn was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1997 Birthday Honours for services to horticulture and botany.[159]

He was well regarded in Sweden for his studies on Linnaeus, and possessed a good grasp of the language. In addition to his honorary doctorate from Uppsala, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded him their Linnaeus Medal in 1972, he was granted the title of Commander of the Swedish Order of the Star of the North (Polar Star) in 1980 and admitted to membership of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1983. Stearn was also elected to membership of the Swedish Linnaeus Society.[21]

Awards
 
Linnean medal
 
Order of the Polar Star

Legacy

Stearn is considered a preeminent British botanist, and was once likened to botanical scholars such as Robert Brown, Darwin, the Hookers (William and Joseph) and Frans Stafleu.[2][7] He has been variously described as a Renaissance man,[20] a polymath,[153] "the modern Linnaeus",[160][161] "the great Linnaean scholar of our day", [162] "one of the world's greatest botanists"[163] and a giant among botanists and horticulturalists.[11] On his death, The Times noted his encyclopedic grasp of his field, stating that he was "acknowledged as the greatest botanical authority of the twentieth century".[5] One description that Stearn rejected, however, was "the complete naturalist"[ac] – an allusion to the title of his biography of Linnaeus.[165] His contribution to his field was far greater than his extensive bibliography suggests, since he was known for his input into many of his colleagues' work, leading Professor P. B. Tomlinson to observe "he left no tome unstearned".[56] The Society for the History of Natural History of which he was a founding member has created the William T. Stearn Student Essay Prize in his honour.[166]

Eponymy

Stearn is the botanical authority[167] for over 400 taxa that bear his name, such as Allium chrysonemum Stearn. Many plants have been named (eponymy) after him, including the orchid nothogenus hybrid ×Stearnara J. M. H. Shaw.[ad] A number of species have been designated stearnii after William Stearn, including:

In light of his work on Epimedium, a cultivar was named in his honour in 1988, Epimedium 'William Stearn'.[170][171]

Selected publications

 see Walters (1992b) and Heywood (2002)
See also: § Bibliography
  • Arber, Agnes (1986) [1912; 2nd ed. 1938]. Stearn, William T. (ed.). Herbals: their origin and evolution. A chapter in the history of botany, 1470–1670 (3rd ed.). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-33879-0.
  • Stearn, William T. (2002a) [1938]. Green, Peter Shaw; Mathew, Brian (eds.). The genus Epimedium and other herbaceous Berberidaceae. (including the genus Podophyllum by Julian Shaw, illustrations by Christabel King) (Revised ed.). Kew: Royal Botanic Gardens. ISBN 978-1-84246-039-9.
    • Rix, Martyn (February 2003). "The Genus Epimedium and other herbaceous Berberidaceae". Curtis's Botanical Magazine (Review). 20 (1): 58–63. doi:10.1111/1467-8748.t01-1-00371.
  • Blunt, Wilfrid; Stearn, William (1994) [1950 Collins]. The art of botanical illustration: an illustrated history. New York City: Dover Publications. ISBN 978-0-486-27265-8.
  • Stearn, William T. (1992) [1966 London: Nelson. 2nd ed. 1973. 3rd ed. 1983]. Botanical Latin: history, grammar, syntax, terminology and vocabulary (4th ed.). Portland, Oregon: Timber Press. ISBN 978-0-88192-321-6.
    • Bacigalupi, Rimo (April 1967). "Botanical Latin. By William T. Stearn". Madroño (Review). 19 (2): 59–60.
    • Eichholz, D. E. (March 1967). "William T. Stearn: Botanical Latin: History, Grammar, Syntax, Terminology and Vocabulary. Pp. xiv+566; 41 ill. Edinburgh: Nelson, 1966. Cloth, 105s. net". The Classical Review (Review). 17 (1): 120. doi:10.1017/S0009840X00323654. S2CID 161335091.
    • Weresub, Luella K. (January 1967). "Botanical Latin, by William T. Stearn". Mycologia (Review). 59 (1): 183–185. doi:10.2307/3756953. JSTOR 3756953.
  • Stearn, William T. (1981). The Natural History Museum at South Kensington: a history of the museum 1753–1980. London: Natural History Museum. ISBN 978-0-565-09030-2.
    • Tucker, Denys (28 May 1981). "Cathedral of Natural History: The Natural History Museum at South Kensington. A history of the British Museum (Natural History) 1753–1980, by William T. Stearn". New Scientist (Review). 90 (1255): 571.
  • Stearn, William T. (2002b) [1992]. Stearn's dictionary of plant names for gardeners: a handbook on the origin and meaning of the botanical names of some cultivated plants. Portland, Oregon: Timber Press. ISBN 978-0-88192-556-2.
    • Rae, David A. H. (26 April 2010). "Stearn's Dictionary of Plant Names for Gardeners – a handbook on the origin and meaning of the botanical names of some cultivated plants. W.T. Stearn. Cassell Publishers Limited, London. Pp 363. ISBN 0-304-34149-5. £16.99". Edinburgh Journal of Botany (Review). 50 (1): 122. doi:10.1017/S0960428600000779.
  • Stearn, William T., ed. (1999). John Lindley (1799–1865): gardener, botanist and pioneer orchidologist: Bi-centenary celebration volume. Woodbridge: Antique Collectors Club & Royal Horticultural Society. ISBN 978-1-85149-296-1.

See also

The standard author abbreviation Stearn is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.[172]

Notes

  1. ^ Opened in 1908, closed in 2006 and demolished in 2007, the site is now occupied by the Cambridge Manor Care Home[3][4]
  2. ^ He later said "I was interested as much in birds and insects as in plants but I think it was my interest in gardening which made me choose plants. I gardened at home and knew the botanic garden at Cambridge well."[10]
  3. ^ The oldest bookshop in Britain[14]
  4. ^ Anemone hupehensis var. japonica (Thunb.) Bowles & Stearn, now considered a synonym of Anemone scabiosa H. Lév. & Vaniot[28]
  5. ^ "When I had to sit for hour after hour, day after day, staring at the sky from a Royal Air Force ambulance awaiting planes which, fortunately rarely crashed, I filled in time by extracting the descriptive epithets from a series of Floras lent me by the Lindley Library of the Royal Horticultural Society in the hope of producing some day an etymological dictionary of botanical names"[40]
  6. ^ The Natural History Museum was then still called the British Museum (Natural History)
  7. ^ The system by which the herbarium was arranged when the museum's collections were moved from Bloomsbury to Kensington in 1881
  8. ^ named after the 18th-century Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus
  9. ^ Publications are numbered consecutively from 1 (1929) to 499 (1999)[18]
  10. ^ In 1950 he came to realise this was not a separate species but a variety of Allium cyathophorum and thus renamed it Allium cyathophorum var. farreri (Stearn) Stearn.[73][74]
  11. ^ Stearn produced 21 publications on Allium
  12. ^ Lilies was published under Woodcock and Coutts' names but was largely written by Stearn.[85][56] The copy in the Lindley Library belonged to Fred Stoker of the RHS Lily Committee, who had reviewed it. In it he wrote "Nominally by H Drysdale Woodcock KC and J Coutts VMH...but principally by W. T. STEARN whose text I have read in great part".[86]
  13. ^ Faculty of Classics lectures at Cambridge, named for the Revd. Canon Joseph Henry Gray (1856–1932), a classical scholar at Queens' College[106]
  14. ^ Later enlarged and reissued as a book[106]
  15. ^ Ray's Synopsis methodica stirpium Britannicarum of 1691 was for long a major source of information on British plants, and an important source for Linnaeus' later work on this subject
  16. ^ Volume 1 (1957) An introduction to the Species plantarum and cognate botanical works of Carl Linnaeus, pp. 1–176. Volume 2 (1959) An appendix to the Species plantarum of Carl Linnaeus, pp. 1–147 includes notes on the illustrations by Stearn with an index to species and genera[21]
  17. ^ In 1973 Stearn produced an edited work for the Ray Society dealing with the flora of the British Isles.[121] This consisted of two works, the posthumous third edition of John Ray's Synopsis methodica stirpium Britannicarum (1724),[110] together with Linnaeus' Flora Anglica (1754)[122] which was based on the former work[123]
  18. ^ Stearn later provided a detailed account of this in an address to the International Horticultural Congress in 1986[83]
  19. ^ This committee was chaired by Wendel Holmes Camp (USA), who would also chair the upcoming joint committee of the Botanical and Horticultural Congresses in London in 1951
  20. ^ Stearn succeeded Chittenden in this position, upon the latter's death. The Horticultural Nomenclature Committee was renamed the International Committee on Horticultural Nomenclature and Registration in 1951
  21. ^ In 1952 Stearn described the history of the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature from 1864[126]
  22. ^ Such as F. C. Stern's A Study of the Genus Paeonia (1946)[2][139]
  23. ^ Engraving by Daniel MacKenzie (1770–1780)
  24. ^ Blunt states he received "some 30 foolscap pages of comments, almost all of which have been incorporated, often indeed verbatim, in my text".[143] Stearn also provided the bibliography
  25. ^ William Hooker (1779–1832) the illustrator should be distinguished from William Hooker (1816–1840) the botanist
  26. ^ 11 November 1960. Promoted by Professor Jan van Steenis, whose citation mentioned, inter alia, Stearn's "remarkable rise to a lofty scientific level by exploiting with energy, perseverance, caution and a rare combination of talent and character – under difficult and often disheartening circumstances.[153] At which occasion he delivered the lecture "The Influence of Leyden on Botany in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries"[154]
  27. ^ Stearn was the last recipient of this medal under this name. It is no longer made of gold and is now called the Linnean Medal, and not to be confused with the rarely awarded Linnean Gold Medal[61]
  28. ^ At the XVth International Botanical Congress, Yokohama, Japan 29 August 1993[18]
  29. ^ "I note you are giving a lecture relating to me as 'a Complete naturalist' which I am most certainly far from being: the only person to whom that distinction could have been given in modern times was Charles Raven"[164]
  30. ^ Named by Julian Shaw, Orchid Registrar, Royal Horticultural Society 2002[168][169]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Prance 2014.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Heywood 2002.
  3. ^ Cambridge 2000 2016, Milton Road Junior School
  4. ^ Geograph 2011, Demolition of Milton Street School
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Times 2001.
  6. ^ Heywood 2002; Times 2001; Barker 2001.
  7. ^ a b c d e f Daily Telegraph 2001.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Festing 1978.
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Barker 2001.
  10. ^ Country Life 1996.
  11. ^ a b c d e f g Prance 2001.
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Elliott 2002.
  13. ^ a b c d e f Akeroyd 2006a.
  14. ^ CUP 2017.
  15. ^ a b c d e f g h Walters 2001.
  16. ^ a b c d Robson 2001.
  17. ^ Walters 1992b.
  18. ^ a b c d e Iltis 2001.
  19. ^ Temple 2010.
  20. ^ a b Moody 2002.
  21. ^ a b c d e f g Desmond 2002.
  22. ^ Moody 2002, p. 44.
  23. ^ a b c d Humphries 2002.
  24. ^ a b c Rix 2003.
  25. ^ Prance 2014; Heywood 2002; Robson 2001.
  26. ^ Bowles 1952.
  27. ^ Bowles & Stearn 1947.
  28. ^ TPL 2013, Anemone hupehensis var. japonica
  29. ^ Rudy 2004, p. 1.
  30. ^ Allan 1973.
  31. ^ Stearn 1955.
  32. ^ Prance 2014; Walters 2001; Buchan 2007.
  33. ^ Lucas 2008.
  34. ^ Herbarium 2016a, Lindley Collection
  35. ^ Stearn 1992, p. vii.
  36. ^ a b Stearn 1999a.
  37. ^ Elliott 1999.
  38. ^ Elliott 2009, pp. 7, 9.
  39. ^ a b Prance 2014; Daily Telegraph 2001; Walters 2001.
  40. ^ Stearn 1992, p. vi.
  41. ^ a b c Hara et al. 1978–1982.
  42. ^ Blatter & Millard 1954.
  43. ^ Prance 2014; Heywood 2002; Stearn 1994.
  44. ^ Fawcett & Rendle 1910–1939.
  45. ^ Frodin 2001, Jamaica pp. 289–29-
  46. ^ Stearn 1978.
  47. ^ a b Nelson & Desmond 2002.
  48. ^ a b Stearn 1981.
  49. ^ Prance 2014; Walters 2001; Iltis 2001.
  50. ^ a b Stearn & Landström 1991.
  51. ^ a b Stearn 1976a.
  52. ^ GMNH 2016.
  53. ^ Goulimis & Stearn 1968.
  54. ^ Barker 2001; Stearn & Davis 1984.
  55. ^ Haines 2001, Niki Goulandris p. 116
  56. ^ a b c d e f g Mathew 2002.
  57. ^ GMNH 2016, Annales Musei Goulandris
  58. ^ Akeroyd 2006.
  59. ^ Daily Telegraph 2001; Walters 1992b; Baumann 1993.
  60. ^ a b The Linnean Society 1976, p. 299.
  61. ^ a b c Gage & Stearn 1988.
  62. ^ BSBI 2016.
  63. ^ Perring & Walters 1962.
  64. ^ Robson 2001, p. 124.
  65. ^ Stearn 2007.
  66. ^ BSA 2017, Corresponding Members
  67. ^ Heywood 2002; Walters 2001; Daily Telegraph 2001.
  68. ^ Nelson & Desmond 2002; The Linnean Society 1976; The Linnean Society 1992.
  69. ^ Stearn 1929.
  70. ^ Avent 2010, p. 10.
  71. ^ The Linnean Society 1976.
  72. ^ Stearn 1930.
  73. ^ WCLSPF 2015, var. farreri
  74. ^ Stearn 1955a.
  75. ^ Stearn 1930a.
  76. ^ a b Nelson & Desmond 2002, pp. 144, 146, 148.
  77. ^ Stearn 1933.
  78. ^ Farrer 1919.
  79. ^ Nelson & Desmond 2002, pp. 144–146.
  80. ^ Avent 2010.
  81. ^ Stearn 1938.
  82. ^ a b c Stearn 2002a.
  83. ^ a b c d e Stearn 1986.
  84. ^ Woodcock & Coutts 1935.
  85. ^ The Linnean Society 1976, p. 300.
  86. ^ Elliott 2007.
  87. ^ Woodcock & Stearn 1950.
  88. ^ Gilmour & Stearn 1932.
  89. ^ Heywood 2002; Festing 1978; Walters 1992b.
  90. ^ Huxley et al. 1992.
  91. ^ Prance 2014; Daily Telegraph 2001; Prance 2001.
  92. ^ Stearn 1944.
  93. ^ Stearn 1981a.
  94. ^ Stearn & Davis 1984.
  95. ^ Stearn 1959b.
  96. ^ Stearn 1994.
  97. ^ Stearn 1964; Stearn 1972; Stearn 1980.
  98. ^ Stearn & Campbell 1986; Stearn 1989; Stearn 1995.
  99. ^ Stearn 1992.
  100. ^ Walters 2001; Walters 1992b; Iltis 2001.
  101. ^ Stearn 1965a.
  102. ^ Prance 2014; Daily Telegraph 2001; Stearn 2002b.
  103. ^ Stearn 1992, Front matter.
  104. ^ a b Baumann 1993.
  105. ^ Stearn 1965.
  106. ^ a b Raven 2000.
  107. ^ Stearn 1990a.
  108. ^ Arber 1986.
  109. ^ Stearn 1960.
  110. ^ a b Ray 1724.
  111. ^ Prance 2001; Robson 2001.
  112. ^ Desmond 1994, Historical Introduction pp. xiii–xix
  113. ^ Stearn 1961.
  114. ^ Stearn 1959a.
  115. ^ Stearn 1958.
  116. ^ Ray Society 2017.
  117. ^ a b Linnaeus 1753.
  118. ^ Ray Society 2017, Linnaeus Species Plantarum 1753 Vols. 1 and 2
  119. ^ Linnaeus 1754.
  120. ^ Linnaeus 1767–1771.
  121. ^ Ray Society 2017, John Ray, Synopsis Methodica Stirpum Britannicarum
  122. ^ Linnaeus & Grufberg 1754.
  123. ^ Stearn 1973a.
  124. ^ Stearn & Bridson 1978.
  125. ^ Stearn 1973.
  126. ^ a b Stearn 1952a.
  127. ^ Heywood 2002; Stearn 1953; Stearn 1952b.
  128. ^ a b Stearn 1952.
  129. ^ Wyman 1956, p. 65.
  130. ^ Bailey 1923, vol. I pp. 116ff.
  131. ^ Heywood 2002; Prance 2014; Daily Telegraph 2001.
  132. ^ Stearn 1969.
  133. ^ Goodwin, Stearn & Townsend 1962.
  134. ^ Stearn 1989a.
  135. ^ Stearn 1937.
  136. ^ Webb & Berthelot 1836–1850.
  137. ^ Stearn 1939; Ventenat 1803–1804.
  138. ^ Prance 2014; Heywood 2002; Mathew 2002.
  139. ^ Stern 1946.
  140. ^ Stafleu & Cowan 1985, p. 851
  141. ^ Blunt & Stearn 1994.
  142. ^ Blunt 2001.
  143. ^ Blunt & Stearn 1994, Preface p. xxv
  144. ^ Sitwell 1990.
  145. ^ Stearn & Brickell 1987.
  146. ^ Stearn 1990.
  147. ^ Blunt & Stearn 1973.
  148. ^ Stearn 1976.
  149. ^ Stewart & Stearn 1993.
  150. ^ Stearn 1960a.
  151. ^ Stearn 1967.
  152. ^ Stearn & Roach 1989.
  153. ^ a b Festing 1978, p. 410.
  154. ^ Stearn 1962.
  155. ^ "The Linnean Gold Medal". Biological Journal of the Linnean Society. 8 (4): 356–357. December 1976.
  156. ^ Manton 1976.
  157. ^ Stearn 1986a.
  158. ^ IAPT 2016, The Engler Medal in Gold
  159. ^ "No. 54794". The London Gazette (Supplement). 13 June 1997. p. 9.
  160. ^ Stafleu & Cowan 1985, p. 850
  161. ^ Buchan 2007; Bourne 2010.
  162. ^ Cox 2003, p. xxv.
  163. ^ Carmichael 2007, p. 43.
  164. ^ Walters 1992b, p. 442.
  165. ^ Walters 1992b; Blunt 2001; Walters 1992a.
  166. ^ SHNH 2016, William T. Stearn Student Essay Prize
  167. ^ Plantlist 2016.
  168. ^ Shaw 2002.
  169. ^ RHS 2016, New orchid hybrids Sept – Nov 2002
  170. ^ Avent 2010, p. 17.
  171. ^ RHS 2016, Epimedium 'William Stearn'
  172. ^ International Plant Names Index.  Stearn.

Bibliography

General books, articles and chapters

Books

Historical sources

  • Linnaeus, Carl (2003) [1751 Stockholm]. Linnaeus' Philosophia botanica. trans. Stephen Freer. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-856934-3. (see Philosophia Botanica)
  • Linnaeus, Carl; Grufberg, Isaac Olofsson (1754). Flora Anglica, quam cum consens. experient. fac. medicae in Regia Academia Upsaliensi, sub praesidio viri nobilissimi atque experientissimi, Dn. Doct. Caroli Linnaei...publicae ventilationi offert Isaacus Olai Grufberg, Stockholmiensis. In Auditorio Carolino Majori D. (in Latin). Uppsala: Laur. Magnus Hojer. also available here
  • Ray, John (1724) [1690]. Dillenius, Johann Jacob (ed.). Synopsis methodica stirpium Britannicarum: in qua tum notae generum characteristicae traduntur, tum species singulae breviter describuntur: ducentae quinquaginta plus minus novae species partim suis locis inseruntur, partim in appendice seorsim exhibentur: cum indice & virium epitome (editio tertia multis locis emendata, & quadringentis quinquaginta circiter speciebus noviter detectis aucta) [Synopsis of British plants] (in Latin) (3rd ed.). London: Gulielmi & Joaniis Innys.

Articles

  • Akeroyd, John (2006). "Preface". Annales Musei Goulandris (11): 35–36.
  • Avent, Tony (March 2010). "An overview of Epimedium". The Plantsman: 10–17.
  • Bailey, Liberty Hyde (1923). "Various cultigens, and transfers in nomenclature". Gentes Herbarum. 1 (Part 3): 113–136.
  • Bourne, Val (18 October 2010). "Garlic: savour the flavour". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 13 March 2017.
  • Elliott, Brent (December 2009). "The cultural heritage collections of the RHS Lindley Library". Occasional Papers from the RHS Lindley Library. 1.
  • Lucas, A. M. (April 2008). "Disposing of John Lindley's library and herbarium: the offer to Australia". Archives of Natural History. 35 (1): 15–70. doi:10.3366/E0260954108000053.
  • Rudy, Mark R. (2004). "Fall-blooming Anemone" (PDF). Plant Evaluation Notes (25).
  • Shaw, J. M. H. (November 2002). "Sternara". Orchid Review. 110 (Suppl. 1248): 109.
  • Wyman, Donald (26 December 1956). "The new International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants" (PDF). Arnoldia. 18 (12): 63–68.
  • Temple, Ruth (2010). "Society News" (PDF). The Linnean. 26 (3): 3.

Chapters

Articles about Stearn

Stearn bibliography

Works by Stearn cited

Articles

Books

  • Stearn, William T. (2002) [Cassell: 1972]. Stearn's dictionary of plant names for gardeners: a handbook on the origin and meaning of the botanical names of some cultivated plants. Portland, Oregon: Timber Press. ISBN 978-0-88192-556-2.
  • Stearn, William T. (1990). Flower artists of Kew: botanical paintings by contemporary artists. London: Herbert Press in association with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. ISBN 978-1-871569-16-2.

Chapters

Collaborative and edited work

Books and articles

Chapters

Websites

  • BSA (2017). "Botanical Society of America". Retrieved 11 January 2017.
  • BSBI (April 2016). "Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland". Retrieved 2 December 2016.
  • "Cambridge 2000". 2016. Retrieved 4 January 2017.
  • . Department of Plant Sciences, Cambridge University. Archived from the original on 18 September 2016. Retrieved 15 December 2016.
  • CUP (2017). "A Brief History of the Press". Cambridge University Press. Cambridge, England.
  • Geograph (2011). "Geograph Britain and Ireland". Geograph Project Limited. Retrieved 7 February 2017.
  • GMNH. "The Museum". Athens: Goulandris Museum of Natural History. Retrieved 28 December 2016.
  • IAPT (2016). "International Association for Plant Taxonomy". Retrieved 7 February 2017.
  • Linnean Society (2016). "The Linnean Society of London". Retrieved 14 December 2016.
  • Ray Society. "Home Page". Ray Society. Retrieved 12 January 2017.
  • RBMS (12 September 2013). "Sitwell, S. Great flower books, 1700–1900". Standard Citation Forms for Rare Materials Cataloging. American Library Association. Retrieved 30 November 2016.
  • RHS (2016). "Royal Horticultural Society". Retrieved 1 December 2016.
  • SHNH. "Society for the History of Natural History". Retrieved 5 December 2016.
  • TPL (2013). "The Plant List Version 1.1". Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Missouri Botanical Garden. Retrieved 7 July 2015.
  • WCLSPF. "World Checklist of Selected Plant Families". Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Retrieved 8 August 2015.

Images

  • "Cambridge University Botany School 1904". Cambridge University Department of Plant Sciences (Photograph). Retrieved 14 December 2016.
  • "Milton Road Junior School, Cambridge" (Photograph). Cambridge 2000. 7 June 2000. Retrieved 4 January 2017.
  • "William Stearn 1950" (Photograph). Hunt Institute. Retrieved 4 January 2017.
  • "Stearn's house at 17 High Park Road, Kew Gardens (with Blue Door)" (Photograph). Google Street View. August 2014. Retrieved 25 February 2018.
  • "Front matter Woodcock and Coutt's Lilies 1935". Abe Books (Image). Retrieved 26 March 2017.

Bibliographic notes

  1. ^ Index by W. T. Stearn, pp. 213–222[Bibliography 1]
  2. ^ Written for first edition of European Garden Flora in 1989, reprinted posthumously in second edition in 2011
  3. ^ Notes on the flowers represented in the plates, by P. M. Synge, The romance of the flower book, by S. Sitwell, The illustrators of the great flower books, by W. Blunt, An introduction to the bibliography, by P. M. Synge, The bibliography, by W. T. Stearn, Sabine Wilson, and Handasyde Buchanan, with a foreword by S. Dillon Ripley[Bibliography 2]

Citations for bibliographic notes

  1. ^ The Linnean Society 1976
  2. ^ RBMS 2016

External links

 
Wikiquote has quotations related to William T. Stearn.
  • IPNI. List of plant names with authority Stearn.

January 22, 2023
william, stearn, william, stearn, redirects, here, other, people, with, similar, name, william, stern, disambiguation, william, thomas, stearn, ɜːr, april, 1911, 2001, british, botanist, born, cambridge, 1911, largely, self, educated, developed, early, interes. William Stearn redirects here For other people with a similar name see William Stern disambiguation William Thomas Stearn s t ɜːr n CBE FLS VMH 16 April 1911 9 May 2001 was a British botanist Born in Cambridge in 1911 he was largely self educated and developed an early interest in books and natural history His initial work experience was at a Cambridge bookshop but he also had a position as an assistant in the university botany department At the age of 29 he married Eldwyth Ruth Alford who later became his collaborator and he died in London in 2001 William Thomas StearnCBE FLS VMHW T Stearn 1974Born 1911 04 16 16 April 1911Cambridge Cambridgeshire EnglandDied9 May 2001 2001 05 09 aged 90 Kingston upon Thames London EnglandEducationCambridge High School for BoysKnown forBotanical taxonomy history of botany Botanical Latin horticultureSpouseEldwyth Ruth Alford m 1940 wbr Children3AwardsVeitch Memorial Medal 1964 Victoria Medal of Honour 1965 Linnean Medal 1976 Commander of the Swedish Order of the Star of the North 1980 Engler Gold Medal 1993 Commander of the Order of the British Empire 1997 Asa Gray Award 2000 Scientific careerInstitutionsBotany School Cambridge Lindley Library Natural History MuseumInfluencesAlbert Seward Agnes Arber John Gilmour Humphrey Gilbert Carter Harry Godwin E A BowlesInfluencedGhillean Prance Peter H Raven Norman Robson Max Walters Vernon Heywood John AkeroydAuthor abbrev botany StearnWhile at the bookshop he was offered a position as a librarian at the Royal Horticultural Society in London 1933 1952 From there he moved to the Natural History Museum as a scientific officer in the botany department 1952 1976 After his retirement he continued working there writing and serving on a number of professional bodies related to his work including the Linnean Society of which he became president He also taught botany at Cambridge University as a visiting professor 1977 1983 Stearn is known for his work in botanical taxonomy and botanical history particularly classical botanical literature botanical illustration and for his studies of the Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus His best known books are his Dictionary of Plant Names for Gardeners a popular guide to the scientific names of plants and his Botanical Latin for scientists Stearn received many honours for his work at home and abroad and was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire CBE in 1997 Considered one of the most eminent British botanists of his time he is remembered by an essay prize in his name from the Society for the History of Natural History and a named cultivar of Epimedium one of many genera he produced monographs on He is the botanical authority for over 400 plants that he named and described Contents 1 Life 1 1 Childhood 1 2 Later life 2 Career 2 1 Cambridge years 1929 1933 2 2 Lindley Library Royal Horticultural Society 1933 1952 2 2 1 War years 1941 1946 2 3 Natural History Museum 1952 1976 2 4 Retirement 1976 2001 2 4 1 Sojourn in Greece 2 5 Societies and appointments 3 Work 3 1 Early years 3 2 Later work 3 2 1 Botanical history 3 2 1 1 Linnaeus 3 2 2 Botanical taxonomy 3 2 3 Botanical bibliography 3 2 4 Botanical illustration 4 Awards 5 Legacy 5 1 Eponymy 6 Selected publications 7 See also 8 Notes 9 References 10 Bibliography 10 1 General books articles and chapters 10 1 1 Books 10 1 2 Historical sources 10 1 3 Articles 10 1 4 Chapters 10 2 Articles about Stearn 10 3 Stearn bibliography 10 4 Works by Stearn cited 10 4 1 Articles 10 4 2 Books 10 4 3 Chapters 10 5 Collaborative and edited work 10 5 1 Books and articles 10 5 2 Chapters 10 6 Websites 10 7 Images 10 8 Bibliographic notes 10 8 1 Citations for bibliographic notes 11 External linksLife EditChildhood Springfield Road Cambridge looking north No 37 is the last house on the left Cambridge High School for Boys 1900 1 Trinity Street Site of Bowes amp Bowes now Cambridge University Press Childhood Edit William Thomas Stearn was born at 37 Springfield Road Chesterton Cambridge England on 16 April 1911 the eldest of four sons to Thomas Stearn 1871 or 1872 1922 and Ellen Nellie Kiddy 1886 1986 of West Suffolk 1 His father worked as a coachman to a Cambridge doctor Chesterton was then a village on the north bank of the River Cam about two miles north of Cambridge s city centre where Springfield Road ran parallel to Milton Road to the west 2 William Stearn s early education was at the nearby Milton Road Junior Council School see image a Despite not having any family background in science though he recalled that his grandfather was the university rat catcher 5 he developed a keen interest in natural history and books at an early age He spent his school holidays on his uncle s Suffolk farm tending cows grazing by the roadside where he would observe the wild flowers of the hedgerows and fields 6 Stearn s father died suddenly in 1922 when Stearn was only eleven leaving his working class family in financial difficulties as his widow Stearn s mother had no pension 7 That year William Stearn succeeded in obtaining a scholarship to the local Cambridge High School for Boys on Hills Road close to the Cambridge Botanic Garden which he attended for eight years till he was 18 1 The school had an excellent reputation for biology education 8 and while he was there he was encouraged by Mr Eastwood a biology teacher who recognised his talents 9 The school also provided him with a thorough education in both Latin and Greek 9 He became secretary of the school s Natural History Society won an essay prize from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and spent much of his time at the Botanic Garden b Stearn also gained horticultural experience by working as a gardener s boy during his school holidays to supplement the family income 2 11 Stearn attended evening lectures on paleobotany given by Albert Seward chair of botany at Cambridge University 1906 1936 and Harry Godwin 12 Seward was impressed by the young Stearn giving him access to the herbarium of the Botany School now Department of Plant Sciences see 1904 photograph and allowing him to work there as a part time research assistant 2 Later Seward also gave Stearn access to the Cambridge University Library to pursue his research 1 8 Later life Edit Stearn was largely self educated and his widowed mother worked hard to support him while at school but could not afford a university education for him there being no grants available then 13 When not at the Botany School he attended evening classes to develop linguistic and bibliographic skills His classes there included German and the classics 7 He obtained his first employment at the age of 18 in 1929 a time of high unemployment to support himself and his family He worked as an apprentice antiquarian bookseller and cataloguer in the second hand section at Bowes amp Bowes bookshop c 1 Trinity Street now Cambridge University Press between 1929 and 1933 where he was able to pursue his passion for bibliography 15 During his employment there he spent much of his lunchtimes evenings and weekends at the Botany School and Botanic Garden 8 11 This was at a time when botany was thriving at Cambridge under the leadership of Seward and Humphrey Gilbert Carter 13 On 3 August 1940 he married Eldwyth Ruth Alford 1910 2013 by whom he had a son and two daughters and who collaborated with him in much of his work 13 16 Ruth Alford was a secondary school teacher from Tavistock Devon the daughter of Roger Rice Alford a Methodist preacher and mayor of Tavistock When their engagement was announced in The Times Stearn was vastly amused to see that he was described as a Fellow of the Linen Society a typographical error for Linnean Society 5 Stearn was brought up an Anglican but was a conscientious objector and after the Second World War he became a Quaker 15 In his later years following official retirement in 1976 he continued to live in Kew Richmond 2 His entry in Who s Who lists his interests as gardening and talking 17 He died on 9 May 2001 of pneumonia at Kingston Hospital Kingston upon Thames at the age of 90 7 15 18 His funeral took place on 18 May at Mortlake crematorium He left three children Roger Thomas Stearn Margaret Ruth Stearn and Helen Elizabeth Stearn and an estate of 461 240 1 His wife whose 100th birthday was celebrated at the Linnean Society in 2010 lived to the age of 103 19 Professor Stearn had a reputation for his encyclopedic knowledge geniality wit and generosity with his time and knowledge being always willing to contribute to the work of others 20 He had a mischievous sense of fun and was famous for his anecdotes while lecturing 21 while his colleagues recalled that he had a happy genius for friendship 22 He was described as having a striking figure a small man his pink face topped with a thatch of white hair 9 and earned the nickname of Wumpty after his signature of Wm T Stearn 23 24 Career EditInstitutions Botany School Cambridge Entrance to the Royal Horticultural Society Vincent Square London Sign to right of entrance provides information on the Lindley Library Natural History Museum Kensington Entrance Linnean Society Piccadilly Cambridge years 1929 1933 Edit Stearn began his career as a gardener at Sidney Sussex College after leaving school at 13 He then became a bookseller at Bowes amp Bowes While working at the bookshop he made many friends among the Cambridge botanists and participated in their activities including botanical excursions In addition to Professor Seward those influencing him included the morphologist Agnes Arber Humphrey Gilbert Carter the first scientific director of the Botanic Garden John Gilmour then curator of the university herbarium and later director of the Garden 1951 1973 the horticulturalist E A Bowles 1865 1954 who became his patron 15 Harry Godwin then a research fellow and later professor and Tom Tutin who was working with Seward at that time 2 Seward gave him full research facilities in the herbarium He continued his research visiting the Royal Botanical Gardens Kew in 1930 at the age of 19 and also spent two weeks at the herbarium of the Musee National d Histoire Naturelle Paris with the aid of a 15 grant from the Royal Society to study Epimedium 25 Also in 1930 the Fifth International Botanical Congress was held at Cambridge and Stearn was able to attend 12 During this time he commuted between the bookshop the Botany School Botanic Garden and home by bicycle his preferred means of transportation throughout his life 8 Lindley Library Royal Horticultural Society 1933 1952 Edit In 1933 H R Hutchinson who was the Librarian at the Lindley Library Royal Horticultural Society s RHS in London was due to retire John Gilmour now assistant director at the Kew Gardens put forward Stearn s name together with Bowles a vice president of the Society who had discovered Stearn at the bookshop Stearn was 22 when he began work at the library initially as assistant librarian before taking over Hutchinson s position after six months He later explained his appointment at such a young age as being the result of World War I All the people who should have had those jobs were dead 5 There he collaborated with Bowles on a number of plant monographs such as Bowles Handbook of Crocus 26 and their work on Anemone japonica Anemone hupehensis var japonica 27 d Written in 1947 it is still considered one of the most comprehensive accounts of the origins and nomenclature of fall blooming anemones 29 Stearn was one of the last people to see Bowles alive 30 and when Bowles died Stearn wrote an appreciation of him 31 and later contributed the entry on Bowles to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography 32 Much of his spare time was spent studying at the Kew Gardens 11 The Lindley Library the largest horticultural library in the world and named after the British botanist John Lindley 1799 1865 was established in 1868 by the acquisition of Lindley s 1 300 volumes upon his death 2 33 It had recently undergone considerable change In 1930 the library had been rehoused in a new floor added to the society s Vincent Square headquarters but the role of the library was somewhat downgraded Frederick Chittenden had been appointed as Keeper of the Library 1930 1939 and Hutchinson reported directly to him Stearn related that when he reported for duty Hutchinson was completely unaware of the appointment of his new assistant 12 Lindley was one of Stearn s inspirations also being a librarian who had a long association with the RHS Lindley also bequeathed his herbarium to the Cambridge University Herbarium where it now forms the Lindley Collection 34 As Stearn remarked I came to know his numerous publications and to admire the industry tenacity and ability with which he undertook successfully so many different things 35 Later Stearn would publish a major work on Lindley s life and work 36 Lindley s contributions to horticultural taxonomy were matched only by those of Stearn himself 5 Stearn soon set about using his antiquarian knowledge to reorganise the library forming a pre Linnean section 9 Not long after his arrival the library acquired one of its largest collections the Reginald Cory Bequest 1934 37 38 which Stearn set about cataloguing on its arrival two years later resulting in at least fifteen publications 39 While at the library he continued his self education through evening classes learning Swedish and travelling widely Stearn used his three week annual leaves in the pre war years to visit other European botanical libraries botanic gardens museums herbaria and collections as well as collecting plants with special emphasis on Epimedium and Allium 2 His travels took him to Switzerland Italy Germany Austria Czechoslovakia Denmark and Sweden 39 War years 1941 1946 Edit The only break from this employment was the war years 1941 1946 leaving his assistant Ms Cardew as acting librarian 12 Initially Stearn served as an air raid warden before enlisting As a conscientious objector he could not serve in a combatant role but was accepted into the Royal Air Force RAF Medical Services as he had previously worked with the St John Ambulance Brigade He served in the RAF in both England and Asia India and Burma where he worked in intelligence and was awarded the Burma Star While there he undertook studies of Indo Malayan and Sikkim Himalayan tropical vegetation 8 carried out botanical explorations taught biology to troops and began work on his Botanical Latin e His wartime observations led to collaborative publications such as An enumeration of the flowering plants of Nepal 1978 1982 41 Beautiful Indian Trees 2nd ed 1954 42 as well as works on Himalayan species of Allium 43 On returning from the war Stearn and his new wife Eldwyth Ruth Stearn were obliged to live in the Lindley Library for a while till they found a more permanent home due to the acute housing shortage in London 9 12 Natural History Museum 1952 1976 Edit From the Lindley Library Stearn see 1950 Photograph moved to the Botany Department at the Natural History Museum South Kensington f in 1952 and by the time he retired in 1976 he was the Senior Principal Scientific Officer there He had now achieved his aim of becoming a research scientist despite lack of formal qualifications enabling him to spend more of his time collecting and studying plants 9 During this time the museum was undergoing steady expansion with new staff and programmes At the museum he was put in charge of Section 3 of the General Herbarium the last third of the Dicotyledons in the Bentham amp Hooker system i e Monochlamydae g and floristic treatment of the regions of Europe Jamaica the United States Australia and Nepal including work on the museum s Flora of Jamaica 44 and the Nepal flora he started work on during the war 41 16 Seven volumes of the Flora of Jamaica had appeared prior to the Second World War Although the project was revived after the war and Stearn carried out six months of field work in Jamaica it never came to fruition no further volumes appeared In Jamaica Stearn followed in the footsteps of Sir Hans Sloane 1660 1753 whose collection had been left to the Natural History Museum 9 45 Stearn s generic work at the museum concentrated on Allium 46 Lilium and Paeonia 5 He continued to travel widely with field work in Europe particularly Greece Australia and the United States 9 and published 200 papers during his twenty four years at the museum and although the library was not his responsibility he spent much time there adding written notes to many of the critical texts 23 While at the museum Stearn became increasingly involved in the work of the Linnean Society during his Kensington years He was also offered the George A Miller professorship of botany at the University of Illinois 1966 but felt he would be unable to leave his commitments in London 1 2 At the time of his retirement in 1976 he was still using a fountain pen as his only means of communication and scholarship a fact commemorated by his retirement present of a Mont Blanc pen capable of writing for long periods without refills 23 Retirement 1976 2001 Edit Following his retirement on 30 November 1976 he continued to work both at the museum and at the Royal Botanical Gardens Kew where his home at 17 High Park Road Kew Gardens Richmond see image gave him access to the herbarium and library a short bicycle trip away 8 Indeed 35 percent of his total publications appeared in the quarter century of his retirement 47 He was commissioned to write a history of the museum for its centenary 1981 48 although he did so with some difficulty due to deadlines and budget constraints 49 The task which took three years was made more difficult for him by the museum s decision to censor his critical comments 23 He continued his association with the Lindley Library all his life being an active committee member 9 and regularly attended RHS flower shows even after he was barely able to walk 5 Sojourn in Greece Edit Goulandris Natural History Museum Athens As a student of the classics he was passionate about Greece its mountains and plants such as Paeonia 50 and all things Greek both ancient and modern 51 The Stearns had formed a friendship with Constantine Goulimis and Niki and Angelos Goulandris founders of the Goulandris Museum of Natural History 52 in Kifissia Athens Stearn first met the Goulandris in 1967 and offered practical help with their museum He also stayed with them when he and his wife visited Greece 13 Niki Goulandris illustrated both Wild Flowers of Greece that Goulimis and Stearn wrote in 1968 53 as well as his Peonies of Greece 1984 54 55 The latter work typified Stearn s encyclopedic approach including topics such as mythology and herbalism in addition to taxonomy 56 Stearn then took on the editorship of Annales Musei Goulandris 57 the scientific journal of the museum 1976 1999 succeeding Werner Greuter the first editor having been instrumental in getting the journal launched in 1973 1 2 Eldwyth Ruth Stearn took on the job of compiling the indexes When he retired from this position he was 88 and was succeeded by John Akeroyd 13 58 He was a liberal contributor to the journal and during this time he and Eldwyth Ruth Stearn undertook their translation of The Greek Plant World in Myth Art and Literature 1993 59 Societies and appointments Edit Stearn was a member of the Linnean Society h for many years becoming a fellow as early as 1934 He served as botanical curator 1959 1985 council member 1959 1963 and as vice president 1961 1962 and president 1979 1982 15 60 producing a revised and updated history of the society in 1988 61 He also served as president of the Garden History Society and the Ray Society 1975 1977 The Royal Horticultural Society had made him an honorary fellow in 1946 and in 1986 he became a vice president Stearn became a member of the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland BSBI in 1954 62 joining the Maps Committee the following year to prepare their Atlas of the British Flora 1962 63 64 He remained on that committee till 1968 when it became the Records Committee For 40 years he was the BSBI referee for Allium 16 While at the Lindley Library he became a founding member of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History later the Society for the History of Natural History in 1936 was one of its most active publishing members based on his cataloguing work at the library 12 and published a history of the society for their 50th anniversary in 1986 8 65 Other societies on which he served include the British Society for the History of Science vice president the British Society for the History of Medicine Council the Garden History Society president 1977 1982 8 9 and was a corresponding member of the Botanical Society of America 66 Stearn was appointed Sandars Reader in Bibliography University of Cambridge in 1965 and from 1977 to 1983 he was visiting professor at Cambridge University s Department of Botany and also Visiting Professor in Botany at Reading University 1977 1983 and then Honorary Research Fellow 1983 67 He was also a fellow of the Institute of Biology 1967 and was elected an Honorary Fellow of Sidney Sussex College Cambridge in 1968 1 Work EditWilliam Stearn was the author of nearly 500 publications including his autobiography 68 i These included monographs partial floras books on botanical illustration scholarly editions of historical botanical texts dictionaries bibliographies and botanical histories 5 Early years Edit Epimedium a genus that occupied Stearn all his life Allium farreri Stearn s first described taxon During Stearn s initial four years in Cambridge 1929 1933 he published twenty four papers predominantly in the Gardeners ChronicleandGardening Illustrated and the Journal of Botany 1 9 his first in 1929 While working as a gardener s boy during school holidays he had observed a specimen of Campanula pusilla Campanula cochleariifolia with a distorted corolla He then described and published the first appearance of the causative agent the mould Peronospora corollaea in Britain using the facilities of the Botany library 8 69 At the Botanic Garden he developed a special interest in Vinca Epimedium Hosta and Symphytum all of which he published monographs on 70 A series of botanical publications followed 71 starting with a new species of Allium A farreri Stearn 1930 72 j Stearn repeatedly returned to the genus Allium and was considered a world expert on it many species bear his name 16 56 k 1930 would also see his first bibliographic work on the botanist Reginald Farrer 75 76 whom he named Allium farreri after 76 and also described Rosa farreri 1933 77 and other species named after Farrer It was while he was compiling Farrer s works in 1930 that he came across the latter s work The English Rock Garden 1919 78 and its account of Barren worts Epimedium and kindled a lifetime interest in the genus 24 From 1932 he produced a series of papers on this genus 79 studying it at Cambridge Kew and Paris It became one of the genera which he was best known and many species of which now bear his name 80 24 Epimedium and the related woodland perennial Vancouveria Berberidaceae would be the subject of his first monograph 1938 81 and were genera to which he would return at the end of his life 82 At the time the taxonomy of this genus was very confused and with the help of the Cambridge Herbarium he obtained specimens from all over Europe to produce a comprehensive monograph 11 The work was so thorough that it was mistakenly considered a doctoral thesis by other botanists He also began a series of contributions to the catalogue of the Herbarium together with Gilmour and Tutin 2 Later work Edit After moving to London Stearn produced a steady output of publications during his years at the Royal Horticultural Society s Lindley Library 1933 1952 These covered a wide range of topics from bibliography to plant nomenclature taxonomy and garden plants with a particular emphasis on Vinca Epimedium and Lilium 83 Within two years of joining the library in 1933 he had produced his first major monograph Lilies 1935 84 in collaboration with Drysdale Woodcock and John Coutts 56 l This text in an expanded and revised edition as Woodcock and Stearn s Lilies of the World 1950 87 became a standard work on the Liliaceae sensu lato 56 While at the library he also continued his collaboration with his Cambridge colleagues publishing catalogues of the Herbarium collections 88 including the Catalogue of the Collections of the Herbarium of the University Botany School Cambridge 1935 89 The second task imposed on him at this time involved the RHS role in maintaining revision of the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature see Botanical taxonomy After his return to London in 1946 at the end of the Second World War a number of major publications ensued including Lilies of the World in 1950 12 The RHS also imposed two major tasks on their librarian In 1950 Frederick Chittenden a previous director of RHS Wisley and Keeper of the Library died leaving unfinished the four volume RHS Dictionary of Gardening that the society had commissioned from him before the war The war had interrupted the work as many of the expected contributors were unavailable 12 Stearn together with Patrick Synge the RHS Publications Editor undertook to complete the work particularly volume IV R Z a task he completed within six months with 50 new articles The finished work was published in 1951 90 and not only did he undertake the role of editing this large work but his contributions covered 50 genera 600 species and complex identification keys such as Solidago and Viola 5 Since Stearn s entries in volume IV extended from Soldanella to Zygotritonia he would jest that he was but a peculiar authority on plants from So onwards He issued a revised version in 1956 with Synge in which he added a further 86 articles 91 His recollection of this task was that he acquired that occupational hazard of compilers of encyclopaedias encyclopedic knowledge 5 Many of Stearn s collaborative works used his bibliographic skills While his genus monographs largely concentrated on Mediterranean flora notably Epimedium 82 Allium 92 93 and Paeonia 94 he was also the author of species articles both popular and technical as well as a number of classical treatises 18 In addition he produced floristic treatments of a number of regions such as Jamaica 95 and Nepal 41 He also contributed to many national Florae as diverse as Bhutan 96 and Greece 50 as well as major regional florae including the Flora Europaea 97 and European Garden Flora 98 While his output covered a wide range of topics he is best known for his contributions to botanical history taxonomy botanical bibliography and botanical illustration Botanical Latin four editions 1966 1992 99 is his best known work 15 21 having become a standard reference and described as both the bible of plant taxonomists and a philological masterwork 5 It was begun during the war years and the first edition was basically a guide to Latin for botanists with no or limited knowledge of the language which he described as a do it yourself Latin kit for taxonomists 21 Later the work evolved into an etymological dictionary 100 but then Stearn learned that such a work had already been published in the Netherlands before the war He then continued to expand it with the assistance of his wife and son systematically collecting botanical terms from botanical texts It is said that only he could have written this work which explains not just the derivation of plant names but also the philological principles involved in forming those names 9 21 The work is considered responsible for the continued survival of Latin as the lingua franca of botany 5 In addition to this seminal text he frequently delighted in the illumination that the classics could add to understanding plants and plant lore such as his Five Brethren of the Rose 1965 101 His best known popular work is his Dictionary of Plant Names which found its way into the libraries of most horticulturalists 102 One of the focuses of his work at the Natural History Museum was the flora of the Caribbean where he carried out field work 11 Stearn continued to return to the Cambridge Botanic Garden cared for his own garden and worked with the RHS to become an authority on horticulture as well as botany 1 William Stearn collaborated with his wife Eldwyth Ruth Stearn on a number of his most important works including Botanical Latin 103 and Dictionary of Plant Names and translating German botanical history into English 104 Just before his death he completed a revision of his original Epimedium monograph 82 56 Botanical history Edit John Lindley c 1865 William Stearn wrote extensively on the history of botany and horticulture 83 105 from Ancient Greece to his own times He collected together J E Raven s 1976 J H Gray Lectures m editing and annotating them as Plants and Plant Lore in Ancient Greece 1990 107 n In 1993 he and Eldwyth Ruth Stearn translated and expanded Baumann s Die griechische Pflanzenwelt in Mythos Kunst und Literatur 1986 as The Greek Plant World in Myth Art and Literature 104 Stearn compiled a major work on the life of John Lindley 36 and produced an edited version of the classic book on herbals by Agnes Arber 108 one of the influences of his Cambridge years and whose obituary he would later write for The Times 109 He also wrote a number of histories of the organisations he worked with 48 61 as well as a number of introductions and commentaries on classic botanical texts such as John Ray s Synopsis methodica stirpium Britannicarum 1691 110 o together with historical introductions to reference books including Desmond s Dictionary of British and Irish Botanists 1994 111 112 In his Botanical Gardens and Botanical Literature in the Eighteenth Century 1961 Stearn provides some insight into his interpretation of botanical history The progress of botany as of other sciences comes from the interaction of so many factors that undue emphasis on any one can give a very distorted impression of the whole but certainly among the most important of these for any given period are the prevailing ideas and intellectual attitudes the assumptions and stimuli of the time for often upon them depends the extent to which a particular study attracts an unbroken succession of men of industry and originality intent on building a system of knowledge and communicating it successfully to others of like mind 113 Linnaeus Edit Carl Linnaeus 1775 Stearn s historical research is best known for his work on Carl Linnaeus 1707 1778 which he began while at the Natural History Museum and which won him a number of awards at home and abroad Between 1953 and 1994 he produced more than 20 works describing Linnaeus life and work 47 114 115 Of Stearn s writings on Linnaeus the most well known is his edition of the 1753 Species plantarum published in facsimile by the Ray Society in 1957 116 for which he wrote both a 176 page introduction and an appendix 117 118 p Concerned that Linnaeus methods were imperfectly understood by his contemporaries Stearn wrote that his introduction provided concisely all the information about his Linnaeus life herbaria publications methodology etc which a botanical taxonomist needs to know The Times stated that no other botanist possessed the historical knowledge and linguistic skills to write what is considered one of the classic studies of the Swedish naturalist and a highpoint of 20th century botanical scholarship Subsequently Stearn became a recognised authority on Linnaeus 5 Stearn produced similar introductions to a number of other editions of Linnaeus works including Genera Plantarum 119 Mantissa plantarum 120 and Flora Anglica 21 q Later he would produce a bicentenary guide to Linnaeus 1978 for the Linnean Society 1 7 124 Although Stearn spent much of his life studying and writing about Linnaeus he did not admire the man s character describing him as mean a jealous egoist with a driving ambition When asked which botanists in history he did admire he cited John Lindley Carolus Clusius 1526 1609 and Olof Swartz 1760 1818 9 Botanical taxonomy Edit Stearn made major contributions to plant taxonomy and its history 125 In 1950 the Seventh International Botanical Congress was held in Stockholm and the RHS would have been represented by Chittenden but he had been taken ill Bowles then arranged for Stearn and Gilmour to represent the society in his stead 13 r The congress appointed a special committee to consider nomenclatural issues related to cultivated plants which became known as the Committee for the Nomenclature of Cultivated Plants the Stockholm Committee with Stearn as secretary 1950 1953 9 s Stearn then proposed an International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants the Cultivated Code producing the first draft that day The code was accepted in principle by the committee conditional on its approval by a parallel committee of the International Horticultural Congress the Horticultural Nomenclature Committee which would next meet in London in 1952 the London Committee 83 Later that year Stearn was also appointed secretary of the London Committee 126 t so that he now represented both organisations The two committees then met jointly on 22 24 November 1951 at the RHS building in London to draft a final joint proposal that was published by Stearn as secretary of an editorial committee and adopted by the 13th International Horticultural Congress the following year 127 The resulting code was formulated as a supplement to the existing International Code of Botanical Nomenclature 128 129 u Stearn introduced two important concepts the terms cultivar and grex Cultivar a term first proposed by L H Bailey in 1923 130 refers to a distinctive genus or species variety raised or maintained in cultivation such as Euphorbia dulcis Chameleon Grex Latin for flock or herd refers to a group of hybrids of common parentage such as Lilium Pink Perfection Group 83 These concepts contributed a similar clarity to the nomenclature of garden or agricultural plants that Linnaeus had brought to the naming of native plants two centuries earlier 5 Stearn continued to play an active part in the International Botanical Congresses over many years where he was remembered for his rhetorical persuasion on nomenclatural matters 131 He was also a pioneer in the application of computer aided technology to numerical taxonomy as in his work on Columnea 1969 15 132 Botanical bibliography Edit Motivated by his interest in botanical history and taxonomy Stearn devoted a considerable part of his output to botanical bibliography including numerous papers and catalogues establishing the exact publication dates of books on natural history particularly from the early nineteenth century including William Herbert s work on Amaryllidaceae 1821 1837 128 8 133 and complete bibliographies of botanists such as John Gilmour 1989 134 At the RHS library he transformed the minimalist card indexing by introducing British Museum rules and adding extensive bibliographic information 12 He quickly realised that one of the major deficits in contemporary taxonomic nomenclature was a lack of precise dates of all the names and set about rectifying this over a fifteen year period resulting in 86 publications which was a major step in stabilising nomenclature The importance of this lay in the rules of botanical nomenclature which gives botanical names priority based on dates of publication 12 He considered his most important contribution in this regard to be his elucidation 135 of the dating of the early 19th century collection of studies of Canary Islands flora by Webb and Berthelot 1836 1850 136 Another important work from this period was on Ventenat s Jardin de la Malmaison 1803 1804 also published in the new Journal of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History 137 12 In a number of instances his contributions to others work went unacknowledged particularly when he was younger even though his introductions often with the title Revised and enlarged by W T Stearn could be as lengthy as the texts they preceded 138 v His contributions to botanical bibliography and in particular the correct interpretation of historical texts from Linnaeus to Arber are considered of central importance to the field of taxonomy 140 Botanical illustration Edit Acacia cunninghamii in Florilegium w Within a few years after Stearn returned from the war his Art of Botanical Illustration 1950 141 142 was published remaining the standard work on the subject to this day There was however some bibliographic confusion 12 Collins the publisher had planned a book on botanical art for its New Naturalist series but mistakenly commissioned both Stearn and the art historian Wilfred Blunt independently to produce the work After the error was discovered the two decided to collaborate Blunt wrote the work while Stearn edited and revised it When it was published Blunt s name was on the title page while Stearn was only acknowledged in the preface x The omission was not rectified till he prepared the second edition in 1994 although the preface reveals Stearn s extensive contribution 7 12 His continuing interest in botanical illustration led him to produce work on both historical 144 and contemporary artists 145 146 including the Florilegium of Captain Cook and Joseph Banks from their first voyage 1768 1771 to the Pacific on the Endeavour 147 the similar account of Ferdinand Bauer s later botanical expedition to Australia with Matthew Flinders on the Investigator 1801 1803 148 and the work of illustrator Franz Bauer the brother of Ferdinand 149 150 Stearn s studies of Ferdinand Bauer s Flora Graeca 1806 1840 enabled him to combine his passion for Greece with that of illustration 51 151 Other illustrators of this period that he wrote about included William Hooker 152 12 y Awards EditWilliam Stearn received three honorary doctorates during his lifetime from Leiden D Sc 1960 z Cambridge Sc D 1967 and Uppsala Fil Dr 1972 11 15 He was the Masters Memorial Lecturer Royal Horticultural Society in 1964 In 1976 the Linnean Society awarded him their Gold Medal aa 155 for his contributions to Linnean scholarship 117 and taxonomic botany 60 156 In 1985 he was the Wilkins Lecturer of the Royal Society entitled Wilkins John Ray and Carl Linnaeus 157 In 1986 he received the Founder s Medal of the Society for the History of Natural History and in 1993 he received the Engler Gold Medal from the International Association for Plant Taxonomy 158 ab The Royal Horticultural Society awarded him both their Veitch Memorial Medal 1964 and Victoria Medal of Honour VMH 1965 In 2000 he received the Asa Gray Award the highest honour of the American Society of Plant Taxonomists 18 Stearn was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire CBE in the 1997 Birthday Honours for services to horticulture and botany 159 He was well regarded in Sweden for his studies on Linnaeus and possessed a good grasp of the language In addition to his honorary doctorate from Uppsala the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded him their Linnaeus Medal in 1972 he was granted the title of Commander of the Swedish Order of the Star of the North Polar Star in 1980 and admitted to membership of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1983 Stearn was also elected to membership of the Swedish Linnaeus Society 21 Awards Linnean medal Order of the Polar StarLegacy EditStearn is considered a preeminent British botanist and was once likened to botanical scholars such as Robert Brown Darwin the Hookers William and Joseph and Frans Stafleu 2 7 He has been variously described as a Renaissance man 20 a polymath 153 the modern Linnaeus 160 161 the great Linnaean scholar of our day 162 one of the world s greatest botanists 163 and a giant among botanists and horticulturalists 11 On his death The Times noted his encyclopedic grasp of his field stating that he was acknowledged as the greatest botanical authority of the twentieth century 5 One description that Stearn rejected however was the complete naturalist ac an allusion to the title of his biography of Linnaeus 165 His contribution to his field was far greater than his extensive bibliography suggests since he was known for his input into many of his colleagues work leading Professor P B Tomlinson to observe he left no tome unstearned 56 The Society for the History of Natural History of which he was a founding member has created the William T Stearn Student Essay Prize in his honour 166 Eponymy Edit Stearn is the botanical authority 167 for over 400 taxa that bear his name such as Allium chrysonemum Stearn Many plants have been named eponymy after him including the orchid nothogenus hybrid Stearnara J M H Shaw ad A number of species have been designated stearnii after William Stearn including Allium stearnii Pastor amp Valdes Berberis stearnii Ahrendt Epimedium stearnii Ogisu amp Rix Justicia stearnii V A W Graham Schefflera stearnii R A Howard amp ProctorIn light of his work on Epimedium a cultivar was named in his honour in 1988 Epimedium William Stearn 170 171 Selected publications Edit see Walters 1992b and Heywood 2002 See also BibliographyArber Agnes 1986 1912 2nd ed 1938 Stearn William T ed Herbals their origin and evolution A chapter in the history of botany 1470 1670 3rd ed Cambridge England Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 33879 0 Stearn William T 2002a 1938 Green Peter Shaw Mathew Brian eds The genus Epimedium and other herbaceous Berberidaceae including the genus Podophyllum by Julian Shaw illustrations by Christabel King Revised ed Kew Royal Botanic Gardens ISBN 978 1 84246 039 9 Rix Martyn February 2003 The Genus Epimedium and other herbaceous Berberidaceae Curtis s Botanical Magazine Review 20 1 58 63 doi 10 1111 1467 8748 t01 1 00371 Blunt Wilfrid Stearn William 1994 1950 Collins The art of botanical illustration an illustrated history New York City Dover Publications ISBN 978 0 486 27265 8 Stearn William T 1992 1966 London Nelson 2nd ed 1973 3rd ed 1983 Botanical Latin history grammar syntax terminology and vocabulary 4th ed Portland Oregon Timber Press ISBN 978 0 88192 321 6 Bacigalupi Rimo April 1967 Botanical Latin By William T Stearn Madrono Review 19 2 59 60 Eichholz D E March 1967 William T Stearn Botanical Latin History Grammar Syntax Terminology and Vocabulary Pp xiv 566 41 ill Edinburgh Nelson 1966 Cloth 105s net The Classical Review Review 17 1 120 doi 10 1017 S0009840X00323654 S2CID 161335091 Weresub Luella K January 1967 Botanical Latin by William T Stearn Mycologia Review 59 1 183 185 doi 10 2307 3756953 JSTOR 3756953 Stearn William T 1981 The Natural History Museum at South Kensington a history of the museum 1753 1980 London Natural History Museum ISBN 978 0 565 09030 2 Tucker Denys 28 May 1981 Cathedral of Natural History The Natural History Museum at South Kensington A history of the British Museum Natural History 1753 1980 by William T Stearn New Scientist Review 90 1255 571 Stearn William T 2002b 1992 Stearn s dictionary of plant names for gardeners a handbook on the origin and meaning of the botanical names of some cultivated plants Portland Oregon Timber Press ISBN 978 0 88192 556 2 Rae David A H 26 April 2010 Stearn s Dictionary of Plant Names for Gardeners a handbook on the origin and meaning of the botanical names of some cultivated plants W T Stearn Cassell Publishers Limited London Pp 363 ISBN 0 304 34149 5 16 99 Edinburgh Journal of Botany Review 50 1 122 doi 10 1017 S0960428600000779 Stearn William T ed 1999 John Lindley 1799 1865 gardener botanist and pioneer orchidologist Bi centenary celebration volume Woodbridge Antique Collectors Club amp Royal Horticultural Society ISBN 978 1 85149 296 1 Green Peter S November 1999 William T Stearn John Lindley 1799 1865 Gardener Botanist and Pioneer Orchidologist Curtis s Botanical Magazine Review 16 4 301 302 doi 10 1111 1467 8748 00234 See also EditHistory of botany Cambridge Botanic GardenThe standard author abbreviation Stearn is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name 172 Notes Edit Opened in 1908 closed in 2006 and demolished in 2007 the site is now occupied by the Cambridge Manor Care Home 3 4 He later said I was interested as much in birds and insects as in plants but I think it was my interest in gardening which made me choose plants I gardened at home and knew the botanic garden at Cambridge well 10 The oldest bookshop in Britain 14 Anemone hupehensis var japonica Thunb Bowles amp Stearn now considered a synonym of Anemone scabiosa H Lev amp Vaniot 28 When I had to sit for hour after hour day after day staring at the sky from a Royal Air Force ambulance awaiting planes which fortunately rarely crashed I filled in time by extracting the descriptive epithets from a series of Floras lent me by the Lindley Library of the Royal Horticultural Society in the hope of producing some day an etymological dictionary of botanical names 40 The Natural History Museum was then still called the British Museum Natural History The system by which the herbarium was arranged when the museum s collections were moved from Bloomsbury to Kensington in 1881 named after the 18th century Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus Publications are numbered consecutively from 1 1929 to 499 1999 18 In 1950 he came to realise this was not a separate species but a variety of Allium cyathophorum and thus renamed it Allium cyathophorum var farreri Stearn Stearn 73 74 Stearn produced 21 publications on Allium Lilies was published under Woodcock and Coutts names but was largely written by Stearn 85 56 The copy in the Lindley Library belonged to Fred Stoker of the RHS Lily Committee who had reviewed it In it he wrote Nominally by H Drysdale Woodcock KC and J Coutts VMH but principally by W T STEARN whose text I have read in great part 86 Faculty of Classics lectures at Cambridge named for the Revd Canon Joseph Henry Gray 1856 1932 a classical scholar at Queens College 106 Later enlarged and reissued as a book 106 Ray s Synopsis methodica stirpium Britannicarum of 1691 was for long a major source of information on British plants and an important source for Linnaeus later work on this subject Volume 1 1957 An introduction to the Species plantarum and cognate botanical works of Carl Linnaeus pp 1 176 Volume 2 1959 An appendix to the Species plantarum of Carl Linnaeus pp 1 147 includes notes on the illustrations by Stearn with an index to species and genera 21 In 1973 Stearn produced an edited work for the Ray Society dealing with the flora of the British Isles 121 This consisted of two works the posthumous third edition of John Ray s Synopsis methodica stirpium Britannicarum 1724 110 together with Linnaeus Flora Anglica 1754 122 which was based on the former work 123 Stearn later provided a detailed account of this in an address to the International Horticultural Congress in 1986 83 This committee was chaired by Wendel Holmes Camp USA who would also chair the upcoming joint committee of the Botanical and Horticultural Congresses in London in 1951 Stearn succeeded Chittenden in this position upon the latter s death The Horticultural Nomenclature Committee was renamed the International Committee on Horticultural Nomenclature and Registration in 1951 In 1952 Stearn described the history of the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature from 1864 126 Such as F C Stern s A Study of the Genus Paeonia 1946 2 139 Engraving by Daniel MacKenzie 1770 1780 Blunt states he received some 30 foolscap pages of comments almost all of which have been incorporated often indeed verbatim in my text 143 Stearn also provided the bibliography William Hooker 1779 1832 the illustrator should be distinguished from William Hooker 1816 1840 the botanist 11 November 1960 Promoted by Professor Jan van Steenis whose citation mentioned inter alia Stearn s remarkable rise to a lofty scientific level by exploiting with energy perseverance caution and a rare combination of talent and character under difficult and often disheartening circumstances 153 At which occasion he delivered the lecture The Influence of Leyden on Botany in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries 154 Stearn was the last recipient of this medal under this name It is no longer made of gold and is now called the Linnean Medal and not to be confused with the rarely awarded Linnean Gold Medal 61 At the XVth International Botanical Congress Yokohama Japan 29 August 1993 18 I note you are giving a lecture relating to me as a Complete naturalist which I am most certainly far from being the only person to whom that distinction could have been given in modern times was Charles Raven 164 Named by Julian Shaw Orchid Registrar Royal Horticultural Society 2002 168 169 References Edit a b c d e f g h i j Prance 2014 a b c d e f g h i j k l Heywood 2002 Cambridge 2000 2016 Milton Road Junior School Geograph 2011 Demolition of Milton Street School a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Times 2001 Heywood 2002 Times 2001 Barker 2001 a b c d e f Daily Telegraph 2001 a b c d e f g h i j Festing 1978 a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Barker 2001 Country Life 1996 a b c d e f g Prance 2001 a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Elliott 2002 a b c d e f Akeroyd 2006a CUP 2017 a b c d e f g h Walters 2001 a b c d Robson 2001 Walters 1992b a b c d e Iltis 2001 Temple 2010 a b Moody 2002 a b c d e f g Desmond 2002 Moody 2002 p 44 a b c d Humphries 2002 a b c Rix 2003 Prance 2014 Heywood 2002 Robson 2001 Bowles 1952 Bowles amp Stearn 1947 TPL 2013 Anemone hupehensis var japonica Rudy 2004 p 1 Allan 1973 Stearn 1955 Prance 2014 Walters 2001 Buchan 2007 Lucas 2008 Herbarium 2016a Lindley Collection Stearn 1992 p vii a b Stearn 1999a Elliott 1999 Elliott 2009 pp 7 9 a b Prance 2014 Daily Telegraph 2001 Walters 2001 Stearn 1992 p vi a b c Hara et al 1978 1982 Blatter amp Millard 1954 Prance 2014 Heywood 2002 Stearn 1994 Fawcett amp Rendle 1910 1939 Frodin 2001 Jamaica pp 289 29 Stearn 1978 a b Nelson amp Desmond 2002 a b Stearn 1981 Prance 2014 Walters 2001 Iltis 2001 a b Stearn amp Landstrom 1991 a b Stearn 1976a GMNH 2016 Goulimis amp Stearn 1968 Barker 2001 Stearn amp Davis 1984 Haines 2001 Niki Goulandris p 116 a b c d e f g Mathew 2002 GMNH 2016 Annales Musei Goulandris Akeroyd 2006 Daily Telegraph 2001 Walters 1992b Baumann 1993 a b The Linnean Society 1976 p 299 a b c Gage amp Stearn 1988 BSBI 2016 Perring amp Walters 1962 Robson 2001 p 124 Stearn 2007 BSA 2017 Corresponding Members Heywood 2002 Walters 2001 Daily Telegraph 2001 Nelson amp Desmond 2002 The Linnean Society 1976 The Linnean Society 1992 Stearn 1929 Avent 2010 p 10 The Linnean Society 1976 Stearn 1930 WCLSPF 2015 var farreri Stearn 1955a Stearn 1930a a b Nelson amp Desmond 2002 pp 144 146 148 Stearn 1933 Farrer 1919 Nelson amp Desmond 2002 pp 144 146 Avent 2010 Stearn 1938 a b c Stearn 2002a a b c d e Stearn 1986 Woodcock amp Coutts 1935 The Linnean Society 1976 p 300 Elliott 2007 Woodcock amp Stearn 1950 Gilmour amp Stearn 1932 Heywood 2002 Festing 1978 Walters 1992b Huxley et al 1992 Prance 2014 Daily Telegraph 2001 Prance 2001 Stearn 1944 Stearn 1981a Stearn amp Davis 1984 Stearn 1959b Stearn 1994 Stearn 1964 Stearn 1972 Stearn 1980 Stearn amp Campbell 1986 Stearn 1989 Stearn 1995 Stearn 1992 Walters 2001 Walters 1992b Iltis 2001 Stearn 1965a Prance 2014 Daily Telegraph 2001 Stearn 2002b Stearn 1992 Front matter a b Baumann 1993 Stearn 1965 a b Raven 2000 Stearn 1990a Arber 1986 Stearn 1960 a b Ray 1724 Prance 2001 Robson 2001 Desmond 1994 Historical Introduction pp xiii xix Stearn 1961 Stearn 1959a Stearn 1958 Ray Society 2017 a b Linnaeus 1753 Ray Society 2017 Linnaeus Species Plantarum 1753 Vols 1 and 2 Linnaeus 1754 Linnaeus 1767 1771 Ray Society 2017 John Ray Synopsis Methodica Stirpum Britannicarum Linnaeus amp Grufberg 1754 Stearn 1973a Stearn amp Bridson 1978 Stearn 1973 a b Stearn 1952a Heywood 2002 Stearn 1953 Stearn 1952b a b Stearn 1952 Wyman 1956 p 65 Bailey 1923 vol I pp 116ff Heywood 2002 Prance 2014 Daily Telegraph 2001 Stearn 1969 Goodwin Stearn amp Townsend 1962 Stearn 1989a Stearn 1937 Webb amp Berthelot 1836 1850 Stearn 1939 Ventenat 1803 1804 Prance 2014 Heywood 2002 Mathew 2002 Stern 1946 Stafleu amp Cowan 1985 p 851 Blunt amp Stearn 1994 Blunt 2001 Blunt amp Stearn 1994 Preface p xxv Sitwell 1990 Stearn amp Brickell 1987 Stearn 1990 Blunt amp Stearn 1973 Stearn 1976 Stewart amp Stearn 1993 Stearn 1960a Stearn 1967 Stearn amp Roach 1989 a b Festing 1978 p 410 Stearn 1962 The Linnean Gold Medal Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 8 4 356 357 December 1976 Manton 1976 Stearn 1986a IAPT 2016 The Engler Medal in Gold No 54794 The London Gazette Supplement 13 June 1997 p 9 Stafleu amp Cowan 1985 p 850 Buchan 2007 Bourne 2010 Cox 2003 p xxv Carmichael 2007 p 43 Walters 1992b p 442 Walters 1992b Blunt 2001 Walters 1992a SHNH 2016 William T Stearn Student Essay Prize Plantlist 2016 Shaw 2002 RHS 2016 New orchid hybrids Sept Nov 2002 Avent 2010 p 17 RHS 2016 Epimedium William Stearn International Plant Names Index Stearn Bibliography EditGeneral books articles and chapters Edit Books Edit Allan Mea 1973 E A Bowles amp his garden at Myddelton House 1865 1954 London Faber and Faber ISBN 978 0 571 10306 5 Boisset Caroline ed 2007 Lilies and related plants 2007 2008 75th Anniversary Issue PDF London Royal Horticultural Society Lily Group ISBN 978 1 902896 84 7 Bowles Edward Augustus 1952 1924 A handbook of Crocus and Colchicum for gardeners 2nd ed London Van Nostrand a Buchan Ursula 2007 Garden people the photographs of Valerie Finnis London Thames amp Hudson ISBN 978 0 500 51353 8 see Valerie Finnis Cox E H M 1930 The plant introductions of Reginald Farrer London New Flora and Silva Ltd Cullen James Knees Sabina G Cubey H Suzanne Cubey eds 2011 1984 2000 The European Garden Flora Flowering Plants A Manual for the Identification of Plants Cultivated in Europe Both Out of Doors and Under Glass 5 vols 2nd ed Cambridge England Cambridge University Press Farrer Reginald 1919 The English Rock Garden 2 vols London Jack Fawcett William Rendle Alfred Barton 1910 1939 Flora of Jamaica containing descriptions of the flowering plants known from the island 7 vols London Natural History Museum Frodin David G 2001 1984 Guide to Standard Floras of the World An Annotated Geographically Arranged Systematic Bibliography of the Principal Floras Enumerations Checklists and Chorological Atlases of Different Areas 2nd ed Cambridge England Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 1 139 42865 1 Green P S ed 1973 Plants Wild and Cultivated A Conference on Horticulture and Field Botany September 1972 Faringdon Classey ISBN 978 0 900848 66 7 Haines Catherine M C 2001 International Women in Science A Biographical Dictionary to 1950 Santa Barbara California ABC CLIO ISBN 978 1 57607 090 1 Hunt Rachel McMasters Miller Quinby Jane Stevenson Allan 1958 1961 Catalogue of botanical books in the collection of Rachel McMasters Miller Hunt 2 vols Pittsburgh Pennsylvania Hunt Botanical Library Huxley Anthony Griffiths Mark Levy Margot 1992 1st ed Frederick Chittenden and William Stearn Oxford University Press 1951 2nd ed P M Synge ed Oxford 1956 The New Royal Horticultural Society Dictionary of Gardening 4 vols London Macmillan ISBN 978 0 333 47494 5 Noltie Henry J 1994 Flora of Bhutan Including a Record of Plants from Sikkim and Darjeeling v 3 Pt 1 Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh ISBN 978 1 872291 11 6 Perring Franklyn Walters Stuart Max 1962 Atlas of the British flora London Botanical Society of the British Isles by Thomas Nelson ISBN 9780715811993 Stern F C 1946 A Study of the Genus Paeonia Illustrated by Lilian Snelling London Royal Horticultural Society Strid Arne Tan Kit eds 1991 Mountain Flora of Greece Volume 2 Cambridge England Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 7486 0207 0 Tutin T G et al eds 1964 1980 Flora Europaea 5 vols PDF Cambridge England Cambridge University Press Retrieved 26 December 2016 see Flora Europaea Ventenat E P 1803 1804 Jardin de la Malmaison in French Paris Crapelet Webb Philip Barker Berthelot Sabin 1836 1850 Histoire naturelle des Iles Canaries Paris Bethune Woodcock H B D Coutts J 1935 Lilies Their Culture and Management Including a complete descriptive list of species London Country Life see front matter Historical sources Edit Linnaeus Carl 2003 1751 Stockholm Linnaeus Philosophia botanica trans Stephen Freer Oxford Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 856934 3 see Philosophia Botanica Linnaeus Carl Grufberg Isaac Olofsson 1754 Flora Anglica quam cum consens experient fac medicae in Regia Academia Upsaliensi sub praesidio viri nobilissimi atque experientissimi Dn Doct Caroli Linnaei publicae ventilationi offert Isaacus Olai Grufberg Stockholmiensis In Auditorio Carolino Majori D in Latin Uppsala Laur Magnus Hojer also available here Ray John 1724 1690 Dillenius Johann Jacob ed Synopsis methodica stirpium Britannicarum in qua tum notae generum characteristicae traduntur tum species singulae breviter describuntur ducentae quinquaginta plus minus novae species partim suis locis inseruntur partim in appendice seorsim exhibentur cum indice amp virium epitome editio tertia multis locis emendata amp quadringentis quinquaginta circiter speciebus noviter detectis aucta Synopsis of British plants in Latin 3rd ed London Gulielmi amp Joaniis Innys Articles Edit Akeroyd John 2006 Preface Annales Musei Goulandris 11 35 36 Avent Tony March 2010 An overview of Epimedium The Plantsman 10 17 Bailey Liberty Hyde 1923 Various cultigens and transfers in nomenclature Gentes Herbarum 1 Part 3 113 136 Bourne Val 18 October 2010 Garlic savour the flavour The Daily Telegraph Retrieved 13 March 2017 Elliott Brent December 2009 The cultural heritage collections of the RHS Lindley Library Occasional Papers from the RHS Lindley Library 1 Lucas A M April 2008 Disposing of John Lindley s library and herbarium the offer to Australia Archives of Natural History 35 1 15 70 doi 10 3366 E0260954108000053 Rudy Mark R 2004 Fall blooming Anemone PDF Plant Evaluation Notes 25 Shaw J M H November 2002 Sternara Orchid Review 110 Suppl 1248 109 Wyman Donald 26 December 1956 The new International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants PDF Arnoldia 18 12 63 68 Temple Ruth 2010 Society News PDF The Linnean 26 3 3 Chapters Edit Carmichael Cameron A review of English language Monographs on the genusLilium1873 2006 pp 35 46 in Boisset 2007 Cox Paul Alan 2003 Introduction pp xv xxv ISBN 978 0 19 856934 3 in Linnaeus 2003 Elliott Brent The Lindley Library and John Lindley s library pp 175 190 in Stearn 1999 Elliott Brent 2007 1993 A brief history of the RHS Lily Committee pp 28 35 in Boisset 2007 Articles about Stearn Edit Akeroyd John 2006a William Thomas Stearn 1911 2001 Annales Musei Goulandris 11 9 16 William T Stearn doyen of garden botanists Country Life 68 24 October 1996 Professor William Stearn The Daily Telegraph obituary 10 May 2001 William T Stearn The Times obituary 11 May 2001 Barker Nicolas 15 May 2001 William Stearn The Independent obituary Archived from the original on 24 April 2008 Desmond Ray 2002 The Linnean Scholar PDF The Linnean 18 41 43 Elliott Brent 2002 W T Stearn The Royal Horticultural Society Years 1930 1952 PDF The Linnean 18 34 36 Festing Sally 10 August 1978 Energy perseverance and caution Professor William Stearn botanist extraordinary New Scientist 79 1115 410 412 Heywood Vernon June 2002 William Thomas Stearn CBE VMH 1911 2001 an appreciation Archives of Natural History 29 2 NP 143 doi 10 3366 anh 2002 29 2 NP Humphries Chris 2002 William T Stearn The Museum Years 1952 1976 PDF The Linnean 18 34 40 Iltis Hugh H January 2001 William T Stearn Recipient of the 2000 Asa Gray Award Systematic Botany 26 1 1 4 doi 10 1043 0363 6445 26 1 1 inactive 31 December 2022 JSTOR 2666651 a href Template Cite journal html title Template Cite journal cite journal a CS1 maint DOI inactive as of December 2022 link Manton Irene December 1976 The Linnean Gold Medal Dr William Thomas Stearn F L S Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 8 4 356 357 doi 10 1111 j 1095 8312 1976 tb00254 x Mathew Brian 2002 William Stearn The Monographer PDF The Linnean 18 32 34 Moody James 2002 W T Stearn 20th Century Renaissance Man and Friend PDF The Linnean 18 44 45 Prance Ghillean T 1 January 2001 William Thomas Stearn 1911 2001 Taxon 50 4 1255 1276 doi 10 1002 j 1996 8175 2001 tb02620 x JSTOR 1224755 Prance Ghillean T May 2014 Stearn William Thomas Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online ed Oxford University Press doi 10 1093 ref odnb 75893 Subscription or UK public library membership required Robson N K B 2001 William Thomas Stearn PDF Watsonia obituary 24 123 124 Walters S M August 1992a A bouquet for the complete naturalist a celebration of the 80th birthday of W T Stearn Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 109 4 435 436 doi 10 1111 j 1095 8339 1992 tb01441 x Walters S M August 1992b W T Stearn the complete naturalist Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 109 4 437 442 doi 10 1111 j 1095 8339 1992 tb01442 x Walters S Max 6 June 2001 William Stearn The Guardian obituary Stearn William Thomas 1911 2001 JStor Global Plants JSTOR 000008088 Stearn bibliography Edit The Linnean Society December 1976 Publications by William T Stearn on bibliographical botanical and horticultural subjects 1929 1976 a chronological list Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 8 4 299 318 doi 10 1111 j 1095 8312 1976 tb00252 x The Linnean Society August 1992 Publications by William T Stearn on bibliographical botanical and horticultural subjects 1977 1991 a chronological list Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 109 4 443 451 doi 10 1111 j 1095 8339 1992 tb01443 x Nelson E Charles Desmond Ray June 2002 Bibliography of William Thomas Stearn 1911 2001 Archives of Natural History 29 2 144 170 doi 10 3366 anh 2002 29 2 144 Stafleu Frans A Cowan Richard S 1985 Stearn William Thomas Taxonomic literature a selective guide to botanical publications and collections with dates commentaries and types Vol 5 Sal Ste 2nd ed Utrecht Bohn Scheltema amp Holkema pp 850 853 ISBN 9789031302246 Works by Stearn cited Edit Articles Edit Stearn William T 17 August 1929 A new disease of Campanula pusilla Peronospora corollae Gardening Illustrated 51 565 Stearn William T 1930 A new Allium from China A farreri sp nov Journal of Botany 68 342 343 Stearn W T 1933 Rosa farreri Stapf Farrer s Threepenny bit Rose Gardeners Chronicle Series 3 94 237 238 Stearn William T 15 February 1937 On the dates of publication of Webb and Berthelot s Histoire Naturelle des Iles Canaries Journal of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History 1 2 49 63 doi 10 3366 jsbnh 1937 1 2 49 Stearn William Thomas November 1938 Epimedium and Vancouveria Berberidaceae a monograph Journal of the Linnean Society of London Botany 51 340 409 535 doi 10 1111 j 1095 8339 1937 tb01914 x Stearn William Thomas 28 February 1939 Ventenat s Description des Plantes de J M Cels Jardin de la Malmaison and Choix des Plantes Journal of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History 1 7 199 201 doi 10 3366 jsbnh 1939 1 7 199 Stearn W T 1944 Notes on the genus Allium in the Old World its distribution names literature classification and garden worthy species Herbertia 11 11 34 Stearn William T November 1952 William Herbert s Appendix and Amaryllidaceae Journal of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History 2 9 375 377 doi 10 3366 jsbnh 1952 2 9 375 Stearn William T 1952b Proposed International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants Historical Introduction Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society 77 157 173 Stearn W T 7 September 1952a International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants Address given by the Secretary of the International Committee on Horticultural Nomenclature and Registration at the opening meeting Bromeliad Society International Archived from the original on 18 April 2016 Retrieved 2 January 2017 Stearn William T July August 1955 E A Bowles 1885 1954 the man and his garden Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society 80 317 326 366 376 Stearn W T 1955a Allium cyathophorum var farreri Curtis s Botanical Magazine 170 new series tab 252 Stearn William T April 1959b A Botanist s random impressions of Jamaica Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London 170 2 134 147 doi 10 1111 j 1095 8312 1959 tb00839 x Stearn William T December 1958 Botanical exploration to the time of Linnaeus Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London 169 3 173 196 doi 10 1111 j 1095 8312 1958 tb01472 x Stearn W T January 1959a The Background of Linnaeus s Contributions to the Nomenclature and Methods of Systematic Biology Systematic Zoology 8 1 4 22 doi 10 2307 2411603 JSTOR 2411603 Stearn W T December 1960 Mrs Agnes Arber Botanist and Philosopher 1879 1960 Taxon Reprint of obituary in The Times 24 March 1960 9 9 261 263 doi 10 1002 j 1996 8175 1960 tb02799 x JSTOR 1217828 Stearn William T 1960a Franz Bauer and Ferdinand Bauer masters of botanical illustration Endeavour First Series 19 27 35 Stearn William T 1 January 1962 The Influence of Leyden on Botany in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries The British Journal for the History of Science 1 2 137 158 doi 10 1017 s0007087400001321 JSTOR 4025129 S2CID 145329825 Stearn William T 1965 The Origin and Later Development of Cultivated Plants Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society 90 279 291 322 341 Stearn William 15 October 1965a The five brethren of the rose An old botanical riddle PDF Huntia 2 180 184 Stearn William T 1 January 1967 Sibthorp Smith the Flora Graeca and the Florae Graecae Prodromus Taxon 16 3 168 178 doi 10 2307 1216982 JSTOR 1216982 Stearn William T 1969 The Jamaican species of Columnea and Alloplectus Gesneriaceae Bulletin of the British Museum Natural History Botany 4 5 179 236 Stearn William T December 1976 From Theophrastus and Dioscorides to Sibthorp and Smith the background and origin of the Flora Graeca Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 8 4 285 298 doi 10 1111 j 1095 8312 1976 tb00251 x PMID 11631653 Stearn William August 1977 The Earliest European Acquaintance with Tropical Vegetation Gardens Bulletin Singapore 29 13 18 Stearn W T 1978 European species of Allium and allied genera of Alliaceae a synonymic enumeration Annales Musei Goulandris 4 83 198 Stearn W T 1981a The genus Allium in the Balkan Peninsula Botanische Jahrbucher 102 201 203 Stearn William T 1986 Historical Survey of the Naming of Cultivated Plants Acta Horticulturae 182 182 18 28 doi 10 17660 ActaHortic 1986 182 1 Stearn William T 1 May 1986a The Wilkins Lecture 1985 John Wilkins John Ray and Carl Linnaeus Notes and Records of the Royal Society 40 2 101 123 doi 10 1098 rsnr 1986 0007 ISSN 0035 9149 S2CID 145353174 Stearn William T 1989a List of publications of John S L Gilmour Plant Systematics and Evolution 167 1 2 109 112 doi 10 1007 BF00936553 S2CID 677643 Stearn W T October 2007 1986 Society for the Bibliography of Natural History later the Society for the History of Natural History 1936 1985 A quinquagenary record Archives of Natural History 34 2 379 396 sup 1 15 doi 10 3366 anh 2007 34 2 379 Books Edit Stearn William T 2002 Cassell 1972 Stearn s dictionary of plant names for gardeners a handbook on the origin and meaning of the botanical names of some cultivated plants Portland Oregon Timber Press ISBN 978 0 88192 556 2 Stearn William T 1990 Flower artists of Kew botanical paintings by contemporary artists London Herbert Press in association with the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew ISBN 978 1 871569 16 2 Chapters Edit Stearn W T A bibliography of the books and contributions to periodicals written by Reginald Farrer with obituaries etc pp 99 113 in Cox 1930 Stearn W T Botanical gardens and botanical literature in the eighteenth century pp xli cxl in Hunt et al 1958 1961 vol 2 Stearn W T Berberidaceae pp 244 245 in Tutin et al 1964 1980 vol 1 Stearn W T Vinca Lycium pp 69 193 194 in Tutin et al 1964 1980 vol 3 Stearn W T The principles of botanical nomenclature their basis and history pp 86 101 in Green 1973 Stearn W T 1980 Allium Nectaroscordum Nothoscordum pp 49 70 ISBN 978 0 521 20108 7 in Tutin et al 1964 1980 vol 5 Stearn W T 1989 Nandina Ranzania Epimedium Vancouveria Jeffersonia Caulophyllum Gymnospermium Bongardia Diphylleia Podophyllum Berberidaceae pp 370 371 389 396 ISBN 978 0 521 76151 2 in Cullen et al 2011 vol 3 vol 2 pp 390 410ff in 2nd ed b Stearn W T Alliaceae Amaryllidaceae pp 75 87 in Noltie 1994 Stearn W T 1995 Paeonia pp 17 23 ISBN 978 0 521 76151 2 in Cullen et al 2011 vol 4 vol 2 pp 444ff in 2nd ed Stearn W T The life times and achievements of John Lindley 1799 1865 pp 15 72 in Stearn 1999 Collaborative and edited work Edit Books and articles Edit Baumann Hellmut 1993 1986 Die griechische Pflanzenwelt in Mythos Kunst und Literatur The Greek Plant World in Myth Art and Literature trans William Thomas Stearn Eldwyth Ruth Stearn Portland Oregon Timber Press ISBN 9780881922318 Blatter Ethelbert Millard Walter Samuel 1954 1937 Some Beautiful Indian Trees 2nd ed Bombay Natural History Society ISBN 978 0 19 562162 4 Blunt Wilfred Stearn William 1973 Captain Cook s Florilegium A Selection of Engravings from the Drawings of Plants Collected by Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander on Captain Cook s First Voyage to the Islands of the Pacific London Lion and Unicorn Press ISBN 978 0 902490 12 3 see Banks Florilegium Blunt Wilfrid 2001 Linnaeus the complete naturalist Introduction by William T Stearn Princeton New Jersey Princeton University Press ISBN 978 0 691 09636 0 Bowles E A Stearn W T 1947 The History of Anemone japonica Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society 72 261 268 297 308 Desmond Ray 1994 1977 Dictionary of British and Irish botanists and horticulturists including plant collectors flower painters and garden designers 2nd ed London Taylor amp Francis ISBN 978 0 85066 843 8 Gage Andrew Thomas Stearn William Thomas 1988 1938 A bicentenary history of the Linnean Society of London Revised ed London Academic Press ISBN 978 0 12 273150 1 Gilmour John Stearn W T 1932 Schedae ad Herbarium Florae Cantabrigiensis Decades I II Schedae ad Sertum Cantabrigiense Exsiccatum Decades I II PDF Journal of Botany 70 sup 1 29 Goodwin G H Stearn W T Townsend A C January 1962 A catalogue of papers concerning the dates of publication of natural history books Fourth supplement Journal of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History 4 1 1 19 doi 10 3366 jsbnh 1962 4 1 1 Goulimis Constantine Stearn William T 1968 Wild Flowers of Greece Illustrated by Niki Goulandris Athens Goulandris Natural History Museum Hara Hiroshi Stearn William Thomas Williams L H J 1978 1982 An enumeration of the flowering plants of Nepal 3 vols London Trustees of British Museum ISBN 978 0 565 00777 5 Linnaeus Carl 1753 Stearn William T ed Species plantarum 2 vols Facsimile 1957 1959 ed London Ray Society see Species plantarum Linnaeus Carl 1754 Notes on Linnaeus s Genera plantarum pp v xxiv In Stearn William T ed Genera plantarum Historiae naturalis classica 5th Facsimile 1960 ed Weinheim J Cramer see Genera plantarum Linnaeus Carl 1767 1771 Introductory notes pp v xxiv In Stearn William T ed Mantissa plantarum Historiae naturalis classica Facsimile 1961 ed Weinheim J Cramer see Mantissa plantarum Raven J E 1990 Plants and plant lore in ancient Greece with an introduction by William T Stearn Annales Musei Goulandris 8 129 180 Raven J E 2000 Stearn W T ed Plants and plant lore in ancient Greece Oxford Leopard s Press ISBN 978 0 904920 40 6 Sitwell Sacheverell 1990 1956 London Collins Synge Patrick Millington ed Great flower books 1700 1900 a bibliographical record of two centuries of finely illustrated flower books New ed London Witherby ISBN 978 0 85493 202 3 c Reviews Review Massachusetts Horticultural Society Stearn W T ed 1953 International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants formulated and adopted by the International Botanical Congress Committee for the Nomenclature of Cultivated Plants and the International Committee on Horticultural Nomenclature and Registration at the Thirteenth International Horticultural Congress London September 1952 London Royal Horticultural Society Stearn William T ed 1973a Ray Dillenius Linnaeus and the Synopsis methodica Stirpium Britannicarum John Ray Synopsis Methodica Stirpum Britannicarum Third edition 1724 Carl Linnaeus Flora Anglica 1754 amp 1759 Ray Society pp 1 90 ISBN 978 0 903874 00 7 Stearn William T 1976 The Australian flower paintings of Ferdinand Bauer Introduction by Wilfrid Blunt London Basilisk Press ISBN 978 0 905013 01 5 see Ferdinand Bauer Green P S 1977 A Selection of Australian Flower Paintings by Ferdinand Bauer PDF Journal of the Adelaide Botanic Garden Review 1 2 145 149 Stearn William T Bridson Gavin 1978 Carl Linnaeus 1707 1778 a bicentenary guide to the career and achievements of Linnaeus and the collections of the Linnean society London Linnean Society ISBN 978 0 9506207 0 1 Stearn W T Davis P H 1984 Peonies of Greece A Taxonomic and Historical Survey of the Genus Paeonia in Greece Athens Goulandris Natural History Museum ISBN 978 0 565 00975 5 Stearn W T Biographical and bibliographical introduction to John Raven s lectures on Greek plants pp 130 138 in Raven 1990 Stearn William T Brickell Christopher 1987 An English florilegium flowers trees shrubs fruits herbs the Tradescant legacy Watercolour paintings by Mary Grierson London Thames and Hudson ISBN 978 0 500 23486 0 Stearn William T Roach Frederick A 1989 Hooker s finest fruits a selection of paintings of fruits by William Hooker 1779 1832 New York City Prentice Hall Press ISBN 978 0 13 394545 4 see William Hooker Stewart Joyce Stearn William T 1993 The orchid paintings of Franz Bauer London Herbert in association with the Natural History Museum ISBN 978 1 871569 58 2 Woodcock Hubert Bayley Drysdale Stearn William Thomas 1950 Lilies of the World Their Cultivation amp Classification Country Life Chapters Edit Stearn W T Campbell E 2011 Allium pp 231 246 ISBN 978 0 521 76147 5 in Cullen et al 2011 vol 2 vol 1 pp 133 146 in 2nd ed Stearn W T Landstrom T Ornithogalum pp 686 694 in Strid amp Tan 1991 Websites Edit BSA 2017 Botanical Society of America Retrieved 11 January 2017 BSBI April 2016 Botanical Society of Britain amp Ireland Retrieved 2 December 2016 Cambridge 2000 2016 Retrieved 4 January 2017 Cambridge University Herbarium Department of Plant Sciences Cambridge University Archived from the original on 18 September 2016 Retrieved 15 December 2016 CUP 2017 A Brief History of the Press Cambridge University Press Cambridge England Geograph 2011 Geograph Britain and Ireland Geograph Project Limited Retrieved 7 February 2017 GMNH The Museum Athens Goulandris Museum of Natural History Retrieved 28 December 2016 IAPT 2016 International Association for Plant Taxonomy Retrieved 7 February 2017 Linnean Society 2016 The Linnean Society of London Retrieved 14 December 2016 Ray Society Home Page Ray Society Retrieved 12 January 2017 RBMS 12 September 2013 Sitwell S Great flower books 1700 1900 Standard Citation Forms for Rare Materials Cataloging American Library Association Retrieved 30 November 2016 RHS 2016 Royal Horticultural Society Retrieved 1 December 2016 SHNH Society for the History of Natural History Retrieved 5 December 2016 TPL 2013 The Plant List Version 1 1 Royal Botanic Gardens Kew and Missouri Botanical Garden Retrieved 7 July 2015 WCLSPF World Checklist of Selected Plant Families Royal Botanic Gardens Kew Retrieved 8 August 2015 Images Edit Cambridge University Botany School 1904 Cambridge University Department of Plant Sciences Photograph Retrieved 14 December 2016 Milton Road Junior School Cambridge Photograph Cambridge 2000 7 June 2000 Retrieved 4 January 2017 William Stearn 1950 Photograph Hunt Institute Retrieved 4 January 2017 Stearn s house at 17 High Park Road Kew Gardens with Blue Door Photograph Google Street View August 2014 Retrieved 25 February 2018 Front matter Woodcock and Coutt s Lilies 1935 Abe Books Image Retrieved 26 March 2017 Bibliographic notes Edit Index by W T Stearn pp 213 222 Bibliography 1 Written for first edition of European Garden Flora in 1989 reprinted posthumously in second edition in 2011 Notes on the flowers represented in the plates by P M Synge The romance of the flower book by S Sitwell The illustrators of the great flower books by W Blunt An introduction to the bibliography by P M Synge The bibliography by W T Stearn Sabine Wilson and Handasyde Buchanan with a foreword by S Dillon Ripley Bibliography 2 Citations for bibliographic notes Edit The Linnean Society 1976 RBMS 2016External links Edit Wikiquote has quotations related to William T Stearn IPNI List of plant names with authority Stearn 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