Vernon Heywood

Vernon Heywood in 2006

Vernon Hilton Heywood (24 December 1927 – 17 September 2022[1] [2]) was a British biologist. He specialised in medicinal and aromatic plants, and the conservation of wild relatives of plants.

Heywood was appointed lecturer at University of Liverpool, UK in 1955, promoted to senior lecturer in 1960 and to reader in 1963. He was awarded the second established Chair in Botany in 1964 and left Liverpool in 1968.

He was Professor of Botany and Head of Department at the University of Reading until 1987 when he became founder and director of Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI).[3]

In 1987 he was awarded the Linnean Medal of the Linnean Society of London.[4][5] Planta Europa honored him with their Linnaeus award at their fifth conference, held in 2007 in Cluj Napoca.[6] The book Taxonomy and Plant Conservation (Cambridge University Press, 2006, Etelka Leadlay and Stephen Jury, eds.) was dedicated as a tribute to Heywood in honor of his 75th birthday.[7][8]

His publications include several major books including Principles of angiosperm taxonomy (1963),[9] Flowering Plants of the World, and its update Flowering Plant Families of the World (with Richard K. Brummitt, Alastair Culham and Ole Seberg) as well as the Global Biodiversity Assessment.

The standard author abbreviation Heywood is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.[10]
  1. ^ "Announcement". Botanic Gardens Conservation International. Twitter. Retrieved 21 September 2022.
  2. ^ "Vernon Hilton Heywood". A.B. Walker funeral home. Retrieved 31 May 2023.
  3. ^ "Professor Heywood's information page from the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Reading".
  4. ^ Recipients of the Linnean Medal Archived February 11, 2012, at the Wayback Machine.
  5. ^ "Linnean Medal for Botany". The Linnean. 4 (1): 35–36. January 1988.
  6. ^ About Planta Europa Archived 2007-11-11 at the Wayback Machine.
  7. ^ Leadlay & Jury 2006.
  8. ^ Publisher's catalog entry with text of frontmatter dedicating the book to Heywood.
  9. ^ Davis & Heywood 1963.
  10. ^ International Plant Names Index.  Heywood.