William Bertram Turrill

William Bertram Turrill FRS OBE FLS (14 June 1890 – 15 December 1961) was an English botanist.[3]

W B Turrill's mathematical classification of leaf shapes

William Bertram Turrill
Born(1890-06-14)14 June 1890
Woodstock, Oxfordshire
Died15 December 1961(1961-12-15) (aged 71)
Surrey
Alma materChelsea Polytechnic[1]
SpouseFlorence Homan
AwardsLinnean Medal (1958)
Fellow of the Royal Society[1]
Order of the British Empire
Scientific career
InstitutionsRoyal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Author abbrev. (botany)

Education

He was born in Woodstock, Oxfordshire to William Banbury and Thirza Mary (née Homan) Turrill and educated at the Woodstock National School.

He served with the Royal Army Medical Corps of the British Army during the First World War, mainly on the Macedonian front.[4]

Career

Turrill worked in the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew and was responsible for many innovations including a mathematical classification of leaf shapes.[1]

Awards and honours

Turrill received the Order of the British Empire in 1955 and the gold medal of the Linnean Society in 1958. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in March 1958[1] as someone:

Distinguished for his work on plant taxonomy, particularly for his experimental and genetical approach to problems among British plant species and for his exceptional knowledge of the floras of the Near East.[5]

This botanist is denoted by the author abbreviation Turrill when citing a botanical name.[6]

Personal life

He married Florence Homan in 1918.

Eponymy

The plant species Veronica turrilliana, Symplocos turrilliana, Cryptocarya turrilliana, Astragalus turrillii and Cyperus turrillii are named after him.

References
  1. Hubbard, C. E. (1971). "William Bertram Turrill 1890-1961". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 17: 688–712. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1971.0028.
  2. International Plant Names Index.  Turrill.
  3. "Chrono-Biographical Sketch: William Bertram Turrill".
  4. "Chrono-Biographical Sketch: William Bertram Turrill".
  5. "Library and Archive Catalogue". Royal Society. Retrieved 29 October 2010.
  6. Brummitt, R. K.; C. E. Powell (1992). Authors of Plant Names. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. ISBN 1-84246-085-4.
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