Rodney John Francis Henderson (15 January 1938 – 9 March 2025) was an Australian

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 specialised in

taxonomy image:Hierarchical clustering diagram.png, 280px, Generalized scheme of taxonomy Taxonomy is a practice and science concerned with classification or categorization. Typically, there are two parts to it: the development of an underlying scheme o ...

. He worked for more than 48 years for the Queensland Public Service, 41 of those years at the

Queensland Herbarium The Queensland Herbarium (Index Herbariorum code: BRI) is situated at the Brisbane Botanic Gardens, Mount Coot-tha, in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It is part of Queensland's Department of Environment and Science. It is responsible for disc ...

until his retirement in 2002. The

families Family (from ) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictability, structure, and safety as ...

he studied included the

Solanaceae Solanaceae (), commonly known as the nightshades, is a family of flowering plants in the order Solanales. It contains approximately 2,700 species, several of which are used as agricultural crops, medicinal plants, and ornamental plants. Many me ...

Liliaceae The lily family, Liliaceae, consists of about 15 genera and 610 species of flowering plants within the order Liliales. They are monocotyledonous, perennial, herbaceous, often bulbous geophytes. Plants in this family have evolved with a fai ...

Euphorbiaceae Euphorbiaceae (), the spurge family, is a large family of flowering plants. In English, they are also commonly called euphorbias, which is also the name of Euphorbia, the type genus of the family. Most spurges, such as ''Euphorbia paralias'', ar ...

and

Rubiaceae Rubiaceae () is a family (biology), family of flowering plants, commonly known as the coffee, madder, or bedstraw family. It consists of terrestrial trees, shrubs, lianas, or herbs that are recognizable by simple, opposite leaves with Petiole ( ...

. There are about 3,500 labelled specimens in Australian

herbaria A herbarium (plural: herbaria) is a collection of preserved plant specimens and associated data used for scientific study. The specimens may be whole plants or plant parts; these will usually be in dried form mounted on a sheet of paper (called ...

collected by Henderson, sometimes with other botanists. He was often sought after as an expert in the application of the

International Code of Botanical Nomenclature The ''International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants'' (ICN or ICNafp) is the set of rules and recommendations dealing with the formal botanical names that are given to plants, fungi and a few other groups of organisms, all tho ...

because of his knowledge of the code and of botanical

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

and

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

. Henderson was actively involved with the Australian Systematic Botany Society from its formation in 1973 and was its second vice-president. He was appointed

Australian Botanical Liaison Officer Australian Botanical Liaison Officer was a secondment position, held for up to twelve months by an Australian botanist (or expert in Australian botany) at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, London, England in the United Kingdom. The position was c ...

Kew Gardens Kew Gardens is a botanical garden, botanic garden in southwest London that houses the "largest and most diverse botany, botanical and mycology, mycological collections in the world". Founded in 1759, from the exotic garden at Kew Park, its li ...

for the 1978–79 term. His core activities at the Queensland Herbarium were the maintenance of the plant catalogues, the Queensland Plant Census and editing the journal

Austrobaileya ''Austrobaileya'' is the sole genus in the plant family Austrobaileyaceae – the family is thus 'monotypic' as it includes a single child taxon. It is one of the basal angiosperm families, the most ancient group of flowering plants. The genu ...

. He is the author of books and papers, especially of plants in the genus ''

Dianella Dianella may refer to: * ''Dianella'' (beetle), a species and genus of beetle in the family Carabidae now known as ''Diamella'' * ''Dianella'' (gastropod), a genus of freshwater snails in the family Hydrobiidae * ''Dianella'' (plant), a genus of ...

''. The species '' Hibbertia hendersonii'', '' Acacia hendersonii'' and '' Corymbia hendersonii'' have been named in his honour. Henderson died on 9 March 2025, at the age of 87.

References

External links

1938 births 2025 deaths Australian Botanical Liaison Officers {{Australia-botanist-stub