Stephen Harris

Plant scientist Professor Stephen Harris looks at the botanists and the collections of the last four centuries that have helped to transform our understanding of the biology of plants. The book coincides with an exhibition of the same name at the Weston Library, which is open until 24 October.

He talks of Oxford Botanic Garden’s first gardener, the soldier and publican Bobart the Elder, who plaited silver coins into his beard and was an important breeder of auriculas, and of his son Bobart the Younger, who made a major contribution to science in the garden and once claimed to have discovered a dragon at the botanic garden. Others include the 17th-century author of the first botanical monograph, Robert Morison, prominent 18th-century German botanist and artist Jacob Dillenius, and the pharmacist and prominent 20th-century field botanist George Druce.

Harris is Druce Curator of Oxford University Herbaria and an associate professor in plant sciences.

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