Chris Humphries, Cladistics, and Connections
Chris Humphries, Cladistics, and Connections
By way of introduction, this short piece describes a few subjects that attracted Chris Humphries's attention during his thirty-plus years as botanist and systematist. These include botanical cladistics, cladistics and daisies, and biogeographic cladistics. Humphries joined the Department of Botany of the Natural History Museum in 1972 replacing Alexsandr Melderis, then head of the European Herbarium. His first task was to finish his thesis and obtain his PhD degree, which he did in 1973. His study was on species of Argyranthemum, a genus of daisy in the family Asteraceae, and is a fine example of a morphological investigation (with a little phytochemistry) and anatomical interpretation, with comments on their relationships and geographic distribution. Humphries's studies on Asteraceae to one side, the next period in his career focused almost exclusively on biogeography, and in 1979 he published his first considered paper on the subject, “Endemism and Evolution in Macaronesia.” Humphries blazed a trail for botany at the Natural History Museum and beyond — and his influence extended to other museum departments.
Keywords: Chris Humphries, cladistics, botany, daisies, biogeography, Natural History Museum, Argyranthemum, Asteraceae
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