John Patrick Rourke FMLS (born 26 March 1942 in

Cape Town Cape Town is the legislature, legislative capital city, capital of South Africa. It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. Cape Town is the country's List of municipalities in South Africa, second-largest ...

) is a South African

botanist Botany, also called plant science, is the branch of natural science and biology studying plants, especially Plant anatomy, their anatomy, Plant taxonomy, taxonomy, and Plant ecology, ecology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who s ...

, who worked at the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden and became

curator A curator (from , meaning 'to take care') is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the particular ins ...

of the Compton Herbarium. He is a specialist in the flora of the

Cape Floristic Region The Cape Floral Region is a floristic region located near the southern tip of South Africa. It is the only floristic region of the Cape Floristic Kingdom, and includes only one floristic province, known as the Cape Floristic Province. The Cap ...

, in particular the family

Proteaceae The Proteaceae form a family (biology), family of flowering plants predominantly distributed in the Southern Hemisphere. The family comprises 83 genus, genera with about 1,660 known species. Australia and South Africa have the greatest concentr ...

Career

Rourke studied at the

University of Cape Town The University of Cape Town (UCT) (, ) is a public university, public research university in Cape Town, South Africa. Established in 1829 as the South African College, it was granted full university status in 1918, making it the oldest univer ...

from 1960 to 1970, where he obtained his B.Sc., M.Sc. and Ph.D. He started working at Kirstenbosch from 1966, and succeeded Winsome Fanny Barker as curator of the Compton Herbarium in 1972. He published several revisions of Proteacean genera including ''

Leucadendron ''Leucadendron'' is a genus of about 80 species of flowering plants in the family Proteaceae, endemic to the Cape Provinces and KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, where they are a prominent part of the fynbos ecoregion and vegetation type. Desc ...

'', ''

Leucospermum ''Leucospermum'' commonly known as pincushions, is a genus of evergreen upright, sometimes creeping shrubs that is assigned to the Proteaceae, with currently 48 known species. The shrubs mostly have a single stem at their base, but some species ...

'', '' Mimetes'', ''

Vexatorella '' Vexatorella '' is a genus containing four species of flowering plant, commonly known as vexators, in the family Proteaceae. The genus is endemic to the Cape Floristic Region of South Africa. The name means “little trouble-maker”, given wit ...

'', '' Sorocephalus'' and '' Spatalla''. During his career he collected approximately 2000 specimens of flora from the southwestern and southern Cape, Namaqualand and eastern Transvaal. In 1997 he was made foreign member of the

Linnean Society of London The Linnean Society of London is a learned society dedicated to the study and dissemination of information concerning natural history, evolution, and Taxonomy (biology), taxonomy. It possesses several important biological specimen, manuscript a ...

. In 2003 Rourke was awarded the "Gold medal for Lifetime Preservation of the Environment" by The Cape Tercentenary Foundation.

Eponyms

Several plant species were named in his honour including: *'' Cleretum rourkei'' *'' Grubbia rourkei'' *'' Watsonia rourkei'' *'' Leucadendron rourkei'' *'' Galium rourkei'' *'' Acmadenia rourkeana'' *'' Diosma rourkei'' *'' Thesmophora scopulosa Rourke''

Selected publications

*1997 Rourke, J.P. ''Wild Flowers of South Africa'', Struik Publishers, *1982 Rourke, J.P.; Anderson, F.; Ripley, L. ''The Proteas of Southern Africa'', Centaur Press, *1972. ''Taxonomic Studies on Leucospermum'' R.Br.: J. of South African Botany 8: Additional Vol. 194 pp. *1969. ''Taxonomic Studies on Sorocephalus'' R.Br.: J. of South African Botany 7: Additional Vol. 124 pp.

References

External links

John Patrick Rourke
on ''JSTOR''
John Patrick Rourke
on ''Semantic Scholar'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Rourke, John Patrick 1942 births Living people 20th-century South African botanists 21st-century South African botanists South African curators