Michael Proctor (botanist)

{{Other uses|Michael Proctor (disambiguation){{!}}Michael Proctor}}

Michael Charles Faraday Proctor PhD (21 January 1929 – 24 October 2017) was an English botanist and plant ecologist, lecturer and scientific author based at the University of Exeter.{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/nov/15/michael-proctor-obituary|title=Michael Proctor obituary|last=Marren|first=Peter|date=2017-11-15|work=The Guardian|access-date=2017-11-17|language=en-GB|issn=0261-3077}}[https://www.familynotices24.co.uk/esh/view/4453300/michael-charles-faraday Michael Charles Faraday]{{cite web|title=Dr Michael Proctor Honorary Research Fellow|url=http://biosciences.exeter.ac.uk/staff/index.php?web_id=michael_proctor|website=University of Exeter|accessdate=3 September 2015}} He retired from his post as Reader in Plant Ecology at Exeter University in 1994.{{cite web|title=University of Exeter Fellow publishes third contribution to prestigious New Naturalist series|url=http://biosciences.exeter.ac.uk/news/featurednews/title_274959_en.html|website=University of Exeter|accessdate=3 September 2015}}

M.C.F. Proctor published more than 100 research papers,{{cite web|title=Michael Charles Faraday Proctor, University of Exeter,, Exeter|url=https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Michael_Proctor2/publications|website=ResearchGate|accessdate=4 September 2015}} and was regarded as one of Britain's pre-eminent plant ecologists.{{cite web|title=Vegetation of Britain and Ireland (Collins New Naturalist Library, Book 122)|url=http://www.bol.com/nl/p/vegetation-of-britain-and-ireland/9200000009272181/|website=bol.com|accessdate=4 September 2015}}{{cite web|last1=Lack|first1=Andrew|title=Book Review: Vegetation Of Britain & Ireland (New Naturalist)|url=http://www.bto.org/about-birds/book-reviews/vegetation-britain-ireland-new-naturalist|website=British Trust for Ornithology|accessdate=4 September 2015}} In 1968 he revised and updated Arthur Tansley's book 'Britain's Green Mantle'.{{cite book|last1=Tansley|first1=Arthur|editor1-last=Proctor|editor1-first=Michael|title=Britain's Green Mantle: Past, Present and Future|url=https://archive.org/details/britainsgreenman0000tans|url-access=registration|date=1968|publisher=George Allen & Unwin|location=London|edition=2nd}} He was a contributing author to all of the five volumes of the definitive work on British Plant Communities, edited by J.Rodwell (1991-2000), and also wrote three books in the New Naturalist Series: two on pollination, and one on the vegetation of Britain and Ireland.

Academic career

Proctor studied botany, zoology and chemistry for his undergraduate degree at Cambridge University,{{cite web|title=MICHAEL PROCTOR|url=http://www.paigntonzoo.org.uk/about/people/trustees/michael-proctor|website=Paignton Zoo|accessdate=3 September 2015|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20150920011907/http://www.paigntonzoo.org.uk/about/people/trustees/michael-proctor|archivedate=20 September 2015|df=dmy-all}} then did research on rock-roses (Helianthemum). In 1956 he published a significant work on the bryophyte flora of Cambridgeshire, which embodied "the accumulation of Cambridgeshire bryophyte records begun by Prof. P.W. Richards in 1927".{{cite web|last1=Preston|first1=C.D.|title=Additions to the bryophyte flora of Cambridgeshire (v.c. 29) in the last 50 years|url=http://rbg-web2.rbge.org.uk/bbs/Bryodiversity/vc29/MCFPFlora50.pdf|website=British Bryological Society|accessdate=4 September 2015}} Proctor’s flora set out the history of bryophyte recording in the vice-county of Cambridgeshire and provided a guide to the main habitats.{{cite web|title=Vice-county 29|url=http://rbg-web2.rbge.org.uk/bbs/recording/vc29.htm|website=British Bryological Society|accessdate=24 August 2015}} It was the first detailed account of the bryophytes of that county since 1820, when the third edition of Relhan’s Flora Cantabrigiensis was published.

Proctor's interest in insects and pollination ecology dated from his student days, shared with Peter Yeo at Cambridge, and with whom he remained a life-long friend.{{cite web|title=Michael Proctor|url=https://www.overdrive.com/creators/502835/michael-proctor|website=OverDrive|accessdate=4 September 2015}} After leaving Cambridge, Proctor was employed by the Nature Conservancy in North Wales for two years, before joining the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Exeter in November 1956{{cite web|title=Michael Charles Faraday Proctor: Info|url=https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Michael_Proctor2/info|website=ResearchGate|accessdate=4 September 2015}} where he taught botany and ecology until retiring in September 1994. His main research interests have included distribution and ecophysiology of bryophytes, especially with reference to the Dartmoor oakwoods such as Wistman's Wood; the vegetation and water chemistry of blanket bogs and mires, plus the distribution, ecology and physiology of the filmy ferns, Hymenophyllum tunbrigense and H. wilsonii.{{cite web|title=Dartmoor National Park, Completed Research: M C F Proctor|url=http://www.dartmoor.gov.uk/lookingafter/laf-naturalenv/laf-ecologywildlife/laf-researchsurvey/laf-dbrgcompletedresearch/laf-dbrgresearchproctor|website=Dartmoor National Park|accessdate=25 August 2015}}

Proctor was editor of Watsonia, the journal of the then Botanical Society of the British Isles from April 1961 to July 1971.{{cite journal|title=Journal of the Botanical Society of the British Isles|journal=Watsonia|date=April 1961|volume=4|issue=6|url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/159883#page/313/mode/1up|accessdate=21 September 2015}}{{cite journal|title=Journal of the Proceedings of the Botanical Society of the British Isles|journal=Watsonia|date=July 1971|volume=8|issue=4|url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/164992#page/389/mode/1up|accessdate=21 September 2015}}

Honours and recognition

Proctor was a foreign member of the Norwegian Academy of Sciences{{cite web|title=Group 5: Biology The Natural Sciences Division|url=http://english.dnva.no/c40134/artikkel/vis.html?tid=40155|website=Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters|accessdate=4 September 2015}} as well as being an honorary member of the Hungarian Society for Plant Physiology.{{cite journal|last1=Erdei|first1=László|title=The past three decades of plant physiology in Hungary|journal=Acta Biologica Szegediensis|date=2011|volume=55|issue=1|page=48|url=http://www2.sci.u-szeged.hu/ABS/2011/Acta%20HP/5547.pdf|accessdate=4 September 2015}} He was also a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society,{{cite web|title=Mr John Bebbington|url=http://www.rps.org/member/profile/john-bebbington|website=The Royal Photographic Society|accessdate=4 September 2015}} a founder member of the Devon Wildlife Trust, and between 1969 and 1981 he was a trustee of Paignton Zoo, and was reappointed trustee again in 1991.

His contribution to botany and to the study of Whitebeam (Sorbus spp) in particular is honoured in the naming of a species of hybrid Rowan, of which only one plant is known to exist in the wild.{{cite journal|last1=Rich|first1=T.C.G.|last2=Harris|first2=S.A.|last3=Hiscock|first3=S.J.|title=Five new Sorbus (Rosaceae) taxa from the Avon Gorge, England|journal=Watsonia|date=2009|volume=27|pages=217–228|url=http://archive.bsbi.org.uk/Wats27p217.pdf|accessdate=25 August 2015}} Proctor’s Rowan (Sorbus x proctoris T.Rich) has Rowan (Sorbus aucuparia L.) and Sichuan Rowan (S. scalaris Koehne) as its parents and was discovered in the Avon Gorge.

Selected publications

{{cite book|last1=Ivimey-Cook|first1=R.B.|last2=Proctor|first2=Michael|title=The Plant Communities of the Burren, Co. Clare|date=1966|publisher=Royal Irish Academy|location=Dublin}}
{{cite journal|last1=Proctor|first1=Michael|title=A bryophyte flora of Cambridgeshire|journal=Transactions of the British Bryological Society|date=1956|volume=3|pages=1–49|doi=10.1179/006813856804829723}}
{{cite journal|last1=Proctor|first1=Michael|title=Helianthemum Mill: Biological Flora of the British Isles|journal=Journal of Ecology|date=1957|volume=78|pages=575–592|doi=10.2307/2256855|jstor=2256855}}
{{cite journal|last1=Proctor|first1=Michael|title=Mosses and Liverworts of the Malham District|date=1960|publisher=Headley Bros|location=London|journal=Field Studies|volume=1|pages=61–85}}
{{cite journal|last1=Proctor|first1=Michael|title=The Distribution of British Liverworts: A Statistical Analysis|journal=Journal of Ecology|date=1967|pages=119–135|doi=10.2307/2257721|volume=55|issue=1|jstor=2257721}}
{{cite book|last1=Proctor|first1=Michael|last2=Yeo|first2=Peter|title=Pollination of Flowers|date=1973|publisher=Harper Collins|isbn=0002131781}}
{{cite journal|last1=Proctor|first1=Michael|title=The vegetation of the Malham Tarn fens|date=1974|publisher=Faringdon|journal=Field Studies|volume=4|pages=1–38}}
{{cite journal|last1=Proctor|first1=M.C.F.|last2=Spooner|first2=G.M.|last3=Spooner|first3=M.|title=Changes in Wistman's Wood, Devon: photographic and other evidence.|journal=Transactions of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science|date=1980|volume=112|pages=43–79}}
{{cite book|last1=Proctor|first1=Michael|last2=Yeo|first2=Peter|last3=Lack|first3=Andrew|title=The Natural History of Pollination|date=1996|publisher=Harper Collins New Naturalist|location=London}}
{{cite journal|last1=Proctor|first1=Michael|title=Comparative Ecophysiological Measurements on the Light Responses, Water Relations and Desiccation Tolerance of the Filmy Ferns Hymenophyllum wilsonii Hook. and H. tunbrigense (L.) Smith|journal=Annals of Botany|date=2003|volume=916|issue=6|doi=10.1093/aob/mcg077|pages=717–727|pmc=4242359|pmid=12714369}}
{{cite book|last1=Proctor|first1=Michael|title=Vegetation of Britain and Ireland|date=2013|publisher=HarperCollins|isbn=978-0-00-220148-3|url=http://www.newnaturalists.com/product/9780002201483/Vegetation+of+Britain+and+Ireland+|accessdate=24 August 2015}}
{{cite book|last1=Rich|first1=T.|last2=Houston|first2=L.|last3=Robertson|first3=A.|last4=Proctor|first4=M.|title=Whitebeams, Rowans and Service Trees of Britain and Ireland|date=2010|publisher=BSBI Publications|isbn=9780901158437}}
{{cite book|editor1-last=Rodwell|editor1-first=J.S.|title=British Plant Communities Volume 1. Woodlands and Scrub|date=1991|isbn=0521235588}}
{{cite book|editor1-last=Rodwell|editor1-first=J.S.|title=British Plant Communities Volume 2. Mires and Heaths|date=1991|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=0-521-39165-2}}
{{cite book|editor1-last=Rodwell|editor1-first=J.S.|title=British Plant Communities Volume 3. Grasslands and Montane Communities|date=1992|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=0-521-39166-0}}
{{cite book|editor1-last=Rodwell|editor1-first=J.S.|title=British Plant Communities Volume 4, Aquatic Communities, Swamps and Tall-Herb Fens|date=1995|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=0-521-39168-7}}
{{cite book|editor1-last=Rodwell|editor1-first=J.S.|title=British Plant Communities Volume 5. Maritime Communities and Vegetation of Open Habitats|date=2000|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=9780521644761}}

References

Category:New Naturalist writers

Category:English botanists

Category:Academics of the University of Exeter

Category:Members of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters

Category:1929 births

Category:2017 deaths