Edwin Percy Phillips (18 February 1884 – 12 April 1967) was a South African botanist and taxonomist, noted for his monumental work ''The Genera of South African Flowering Plants'' first published in 1926. Phillips was born in

Sea Point Sea Point (Afrikaans: ''Seepunt'') is one of Cape Town's most affluent and densely populated suburbs, situated between Signal Hill and the Atlantic Ocean, a few kilometres to the west of Cape Town's Central Business District (CBD). Moving from ...

Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second larges ...

, and attended the

South African College The South African College was an educational institution in Cape Town, South Africa, which developed into the University of Cape Town (UCT) and the South African College Schools (SACS). History The process that would lead to the formation of th ...

, which later became the

University of Cape Town The University of Cape Town (UCT) ( af, Universiteit van Kaapstad, xh, Yunibesithi ya yaseKapa) is a public research university in Cape Town, South Africa. Established in 1829 as the South African College, it was granted full university statu ...

, where he graduated under Prof.

Henry Harold Welch Pearson Henry Harold Welch Pearson (28 January 1870 – 3 November 1916) was a British-born South African botanist, chiefly remembered for founding Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden in 1913. Biography Pearson started his career as a chemist's ...

, obtaining a BA in 1903, an MA in 1908 and a DSc in 1915 for a treatise on the flora of the Leribe Plateau in

Lesotho Lesotho ( ), officially the Kingdom of Lesotho, is a country landlocked as an enclave in South Africa. It is situated in the Maloti Mountains and contains the highest mountains in Southern Africa. It has an area of over and has a populatio ...

. He was the son of Ralph Edwards Phillips and Edith Minnie Crowder. He married Edith Isabel Dawson about 1912 and they had 2 daughters before her death c1948. He secondly married Susan Kriel c1949. Phillips named the genus '' Susanna'' belonging to the family

Asteraceae The family Asteraceae, alternatively Compositae, consists of over 32,000 known species of flowering plants in over 1,900 genera within the order Asterales. Commonly referred to as the aster, daisy, composite, or sunflower family, Compositae ...

after her. He died in

Timeline of career

*1907 Herbarium assistant at South African Museum ( Prof. Pearson honorary curator) *1910

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. An internationally important botanical research and education institution, it employs 1,10 ...

- with Otto Stapf and John Hutchinson described Proteaceae for ''Flora Capensis''. *1911 Curator of South African Museum Herbarium, succeeding Pearson who moved to the Bolus Herbarium *1911 Joined

Percy Sladen Walter Percy Sladen (30 June 1849 – 11 June 1900) was an English biologist who specialised in starfish. The son of a wealthy leather merchant, Sladen was born near Halifax, Yorkshire on 30 June 1849. He was educated at Hipperholme Grammar Sc ...

Memorial Expedition to the Kamiesberge *1913 Field work on Leribe Plateau in Lesotho published in ''Ann. S.Afr. Mus.'' 16:1-379(1917) *1918 Curator of National Herbarium, Pretoria *1926 ''Botanical Survey Memoir No. 10'' - ''The Genera of South African Flowering Plants'' arranged according to Dalla Torre &

Harms Harms surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Chris Harms (born 1956), Australian cricketer * Claus Harms (1778–1855), German evangelical minister * Daniil Harms (1905–1942), English transcription: Daniil Kharms, Russian writer * ...

. *1931 ''"South African Grasses"'' *1939 ''"The Weeds of South Africa"'' *1939-44 Chief of the Division of Botany and Plant Pathology, succeeding

I. B. Pole-Evans Illtyd Buller Pole-Evans CMG (3 September 1879 – 16 October 1968) was a Welsh-born South African botanist. Sometimes his first name is spelled Iltyd. Biography Pole-Evans was born in Llanmaes in the Vale of Glamorgan, the son of an Anglican ...

*1944 Edited Christo Albertyn Smith and Estelle Van Hoepen's ''The Common Names of South African Plants'' *1951 Second edition of ''The Genera of South African Flowering Plants''

Awards, honours and memberships

* Fellow of the Linnean Society of London *Fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa *Carnegie Travelling Scholarship to US and Canada in 1934 *Secretary SA Biological Society 1919-44, President in 1925, Senior Capt. Scott Medal *Council of SA Association for the Advancement of Science, President in 1942 *SA Medal 1935 *Scientific Liaison Officer for the C.S.I.R. in Washington, DC 1946-48 *Secretary of Mountain Club of South Africa *''

Leucadendron ''Leucadendron'' is a genus of about 80 species of flowering plants in the family Proteaceae, endemic to South Africa, where they are a prominent part of the fynbos ecoregion and vegetation type. Description Species in the genus ''Leucadendro ...

phillipsii'' Hutch. *'' Agathosma phillipsii'' Dümmer *Vol. 25 of Flowering Plants of Africa dedicated to him

Selected works

*''A Contribution to the Knowledge of the South African Proteaceae'' - 1913 *''Contributions to the Flora of South Africa'' - 1913 *''Descriptions of New Plants from the Gift Berg collected by the

Memorial Expedition'' - 1913 *''A list of the Phanerogams and Ferns collected by Mr. P.C. Keytel on the Island of

Tristan da Cunha Tristan da Cunha (), colloquially Tristan, is a remote group of volcanic islands in the South Atlantic Ocean. It is the most remote inhabited archipelago in the world, lying approximately from Cape Town in South Africa, from Saint Helen ...

, 1908-1909'' - 1913 *''A note on the Flora of the Great Winterhoek Range'' (South African Journal of Science) - 1918 *''A Preliminary List of the Known Poisonous Plants found in South Africa'' (Botanical Survey of South Africa. Memoir) - 1926 *''An Introduction to the Study of the South African Grasses: With notes on their structure, distribution, cultivation'', etc. (South African agricultural series) - 1931 *''Life and Living: A story for children'' - 1933 *''Civilization and our Biological Past'' *''Herbaria and Botanical Institutions in the United States of America and Canada: In relation to similar institutions in South Africa'' : report on a visit ... of the Carnegie Corporation of New York - 1935 *''The Advancement of Science'' - 1943 *''The Genera of South African Flowering Plants'' (Botanical Survey Memoir) - 1951

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Phillips, Edwin Percy 1884 births 1967 deaths Botanists with author abbreviations 20th-century South African botanists South African mountain climbers South African taxonomists Presidents of the Southern Africa Association for the Advancement of Science