Botany at Hull: Prof. R. D. O. Good

Abstract

MR. R. DVO., head of the Department of Botany at University College, Hull, since 1928, has been a pteirwed to the newly created chair of botany. After staving in the Army during the First World War. Good went to Downing College, Cambridge, botany in Part 2 of the Natural Sciences Tripos in 1922. He was for a time an assistant in the Department of Botany at the British Museum, and while there he began the phytogeographical investigations for which he is widely known. Studies of the distribution of the Magnolieae, the Stylidiaceae, Empetrum and Coriaria, and a valuable summary of discontinuous generic distribution in the Angiosperms were followed by “A Theory of Plant Geography” (1931). This important analysis of the factors determining plant distribution continues after fifteen years to provide a basis for the discussion of phytogeographical principles. More recently Prof. Good has been making a detailed botanical survey of his native county, Dorset, and the publication of a small paper on the distribution of the primrose in Dorset gives cause to expect that the work, when completed, will set a new and far higher standard for county floras. All botanists will wish Prof. Good happiness and success in his new appointment.