Norman Robson (botanist)

Norman Keith Bonner Robson (1928 – 6 September 2021) was a Scientific Associate in the Plants Division, Department of Life Sciences at the Natural History Museum, London. He was a member of staff at the Museum from 1962 to 1988, retiring as Principal Scientific Officer with responsibility for General Herbarium Section I.

Norman produced a worldwide taxonomic monograph[1] of genus Hypericum between 1977 and 2012.

Norman’s interest in Hypericum was stimulated by a final year project on the British species whilst at Aberdeen University. He continued work on the genus for his PhD at the University of Edinburgh (Robson, 1956) with a thesis entitled ‘Studies in the genus Hypericum L.’ that examined floral anatomy and evolution. At the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and subsequently at the Natural History Museum, Norman contributed accounts of Hypericum for Floras of various parts of the world. Roy Lancaster encouraged him to start work on a Hypericum monograph in the early 1970s. The monograph, published in a series of papers from 1977–2012, was recently completed and accounts for all 490 species of the genus.

Norman published more than 90 papers and flora accounts on Hypericum and described more than 80 new species.