Kenneth Robert Sporne

He was born in Towcester, moving to Morecambe where his father, Robert William Sporne, was a headmaster. He attended The Royal Grammar School, Lancaster where, unable to study biology, he pursued an interest in collecting plants and animals, going on to win the Sanderson Herbarium Prize.[3] He studied biology at Downing College, Cambridge University, where his interest was in ecology, especially the salt marshes of the river Lune. He completed his Natural Sciences Tripos[4] in 1939 and went on to study floral evolution under Dr H. Hamshaw Thomas. He joined a collecting expedition to Jamaica for three months with Dr Val J. Chapman.[2][5]

As an undergraduate, he had been a member of the Signals branch of the Cambridge University Officers' Training Corps. During the Second World War he volunteered for service and served in the Royal Corps of Signals,[6] being commissioned and taking part in D-Day on D-Day+3.[2] He was awarded the Belgian Croix de Guerre with palm and a Chevalier of the Order of Leopold II.[7] Eventually he was promoted to major,[8] and his last task was to set up an automatic telephone exchange connecting the main military headquarters in West Germany.[2]

Back at Downing College after the war he was a temporary demonstrator (1946), appointed to a demonstratorship in 1948 and lecturer in Botany (1955). He became a Fellow (1949–1976) and eventually Emeritus Fellow; he was Director of Studies in Biology (1950–1976) and Dean (1952–1967). He visited New Zealand in 1951 and 1969.[2] He was elected a Fellow of the Linnean Society in 1956.[9]

His main interest was in angiosperm evolution and he pioneered the statistical analysis of the correlations between plant characteristics as a way of studying plant evolution.[10] In 1980 he published his 'advancement index' for 291 dicotyledonous angiosperm families using 30 correlated characters.[11]

He published three major text books on plant morphology. He was awarded Doctor of Science (Sc.D.) by the University of Cambridge in 1976. He retired in 1982 [1] and died in Cambridge in 1989.

In 1943 he was married in Cambridge to Helen Martin Fletcher (1915–2007), a botanist with degrees from Universities in New Zealand and Cambridge.[2][12][13] They had two daughters.

• The Morphology of Pteridophytes, (1962, 1975 4th edition). Hutchinson University Library
• The Morphology of Gymnosperms, (1965, 1974 2nd edition). Hutchinson University Library
• The Mysterious Origin of Flowering Plants, (1971). Oxford Biology Reader No.3.
• The Morphology of Angiosperms, (1974). Hutchinson University Library

1948 Correlation and classification in dicotyledons. Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London, Session, 160: 40-47.

1949 A new approach to the problem of the primitive flower. New Phytologist, 48: 259-176.

1954 Statistics and the evolution of dicotyledons. Evolution 8: 55 64.

1954 A note on nuclear endosperms as a primitive character among dicotyledons. Phytomorphology, 4: 275-278.

1956 The phylogenetic classification of the angiosperms. Biological Reviews, 31: 1-29.

1958 Some aspects of floral vascular systems. Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London, Session, 169: 75-84.

1959 On the phylogenetic classification of plants. American Journal of Botany, 46, 385-394.

1960 Correlation of biological characters. Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London, Session, 171: 83-85.

1967 Nuclear endosperm an enigma. Phytomorphology, 17: 248-151.

1969 The ovule as an indicator of evolutionary status in angiosperms. New Phytologist, 68: 555-566.

1970 The advancement index and tropical rain-forest. New Phytologist, 69: 1161-1166.

1972 Some observations on the evolution of pollen types in dicotyledons. New Phytologist, 71: 181-185.

1973 A note on the evolutionary status of tapetal types in dicotyledons. New Phytologist, 72: 1173-1174.

1973 The survival of archaic dicotyledons in tropical rain-forests. New Phytologist, 72: 1175-1184.

1974 Pollen evolution in dicotyledons. In R. N. Lakhanpal (Ed.) The Origin and Phytogeography of Angiosperms: 57-61. Special Publication No. 1. Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeobotany, Lucknow, India. (Paper read in Lucknow, in 1971.)

1975 A note on ellagitannins as indicators of evolutionary status in dicotyledons. New Phytologist, 75: 613-618.

1976 A note on the evolutionary status of aluminium-accumulators among dicotyledons. With E. M. Chenery. New Phytologist, 76: 551-554.

1976 Girdling vascular bundles in dicotyledon flowers. Gardens Bulletin, Singapore, 29: 165-173.

1976 Character correlations among angiosperms and the importance of fossil evidence in assessing their significance. In C. B. Beck (Ed.) Origin and Early Evolution of Angiosperms: 319-329. New York: Columbia University Press. (Paper read in Boulder, Colorado, in 1973.)

1977 Some problems associated with character correlations. In K. Kubitzki (Ed.) Flowering Plants Evolution and Classification of Higher Categories: 33-51. Plant Systematics and Evolution Supplement 1. Vienna: Springer Verlag. (Paper read in Hamburg, 1976.)

1980 A reinvestigation of character correlations amongst dicotyledons. New Phytologist, 85: 419-449.

1982 The advancement index vindicated. New Phytologist, 91: 137 145.