An expert in the classification of plants

Merlin’s favourite subject in the undergraduate pharmacy course was pharmacognosy. Perhaps this was because of the topic’s relationship to gardening or, perhaps, for a feeling that pharmacognosy connected with pharmacy’s roots (no pun intended). Whatever: the skills learned in the “cog lab” have sometimes been of use, although not often in Merlin’s pharmacy practice, it must be said.

What a pity that pharmacognosy seems to have diminished as an undergraduate study in schools of pharmacy! How many of our recent graduates can distinguish between Alexandrian and Tinnevelly senna pods, for example? Not that such knowledge is of much use in present-day pharmacy practice.

Merlin’s undergraduate pharmacognosy project involved growing opium poppies (with official approval, of course) in the pharmacy department’s garden. The plants produced magnificent flowers, but the alkaloid content was low, probably because of the weather.

One interesting plant family from the pharmacist’s viewpoint is the Zingiberaceae. This large group of mainly tropical plants, comprising some 700 species in 45 genera, includes culinary spices such as ginger, turmeric and cardamom and also a number of medicinal plants used in various ethnic medical traditions.

But a gardener would probably prefer the Gesneriaceae, of which perhaps the best-known is the African violet (Saintpaulia) but which also includes such garden favourites as gloxinia, achimenes and streptocarpus.

The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh is at the forefront in research into the taxonomy of both the Zingiberaceae and the Gesneriaceae, but the garden recently lost its most illustrious researcher in that area when Brian (“Bill”) Laurence Burtt died at the age of 94.

Bill Burtt went straight from school to work at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and there began a lifetime’s work in the classification of plants. He co-authored his first scientific paper while still a teenager (how many of us could boast that?) and went on to publish nearly 400 papers over his long career.

After war service, Burtt moved to the RBGE and there, in the 1960s, started the study of the Zingiberaceae following his expedition to Sarawak to collect specimens. A study of the Gesneriaceae followed and, as a result of Burtt’s work, the RBGE has become the leading institution world-wide in research on these two important plant families.

Many of the popular plants we see in garden centres — including the African violet — owe their presence to plant breeders who produced cultivars from plants brought back by Burtt and his colleagues. So, next time you plant up a hanging basket, remember Bill Burtt, who started it all.