Robert Allen Rolfe (1855, Wilford, Nottinghamshire – 1921, Richmond,

Surrey Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...

) was an English botanist specialising in the study of

orchid Orchids are plants that belong to the family Orchidaceae (), a diverse and widespread group of flowering plants with blooms that are often colourful and fragrant. Orchids are cosmopolitan plants that are found in almost every habitat on Eart ...

s. For a time he worked in the gardens at

Welbeck Abbey Welbeck Abbey is an English country house near the village of Welbeck in the Bassetlaw District of Nottinghamshire. It was the site of a monastery belonging to the Premonstratensian order, and after the Dissolution of the Monasteries a residen ...

. He entered Kew in 1879 and became second assistant. He was the first curator of the orchid

herbarium A herbarium (plural: herbaria) is a collection of preserved plant biological specimen, 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 sh ...

at the

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 ...

, founded the magazine '' The Orchid Review'', and published many papers on hybrids of different species of orchids. The genus '' Allenrolfea'' of

amaranth ''Amaranthus'' is a cosmopolitan distribution, cosmopolitan group of more than 50 species which make up the genus of annual plant, annual or short-lived perennial plants collectively known as amaranths. Some names include "prostrate pigweed" an ...

s was named after him by Carl Ernst Otto Kuntze. Rolfe was buried in

Richmond Cemetery Richmond Cemetery is a cemetery on Lower Grove Road in Richmond, London, Richmond in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, England. It opened in 1786 on a plot of land granted by an Acts of Parliament in the United Kingdom, Act of Parliame ...

Works

*Rolfe, Robert Allen (1883). "On the Selagineæ described by Linnæus, Bergius, Linnæus, fil., and Thunberg." Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 20(129): 338–358. *Rolfe, Robert Allen (1884). "On Hyalocalyx, a new Genus of Turneraceæ from Madagascar." Journal of the Linnean Society of London, Botany 21(134): 256–258. *Rolfe, Robert Allen (1884). "On the Flora of the Philippine Islands, and its probable Derivation." Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 21(135): 283–316. *Rolfe, Robert Allen (1887). On Bigeneric Orchid Hybrids. Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 24(160): 156–170. *Rolfe, Robert Allen (1889). A Morphological and Systematic Review of the Apostasieæ. Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, 25(171): 211–243. *Rolfe, Robert Allen & Hurst, Charles Chamberlain (1909). The Orchid Stud-Book: An Enumeration of Hybrid Orchids of Artificial Origin, with their parents, raisers, date of first flowering, references to descriptions and figures, and synonymy. With an historical introduction and 120 figures and a chapter on hybridising and raising orchids from seed. Frank Leslie & Co.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rolfe, Robert Allen 20th-century English botanists Orchidologists 1855 births 1921 deaths Burials at Richmond Cemetery 19th-century English botanists Botanists active in Kew Gardens

Works

See also

References