Goldsack, Harold   (1908 - 1989)

Vale Harold Goldsack.

It is with sadness that we announce the passing of life member Harold Goldsack on April 25th. Our sympathies to his family.

Harold was born in East Bengal, India on 27th June 1908. He once told how he could remember epiphytic orchids blooming outside the bedroom window of his childhood home.

His family moved to Adelaide in 1916 and he attended Princes College as a boarding student.

He was introduced to South Australian orchids in bushland adjacent his family's orchard at Coromandel Valley using Rogers “Introduction to the Study of South Australian Orchids” to identify these. Harold in 1924 introduced himself to Dr Rogers and they became good friends. Harold soon began to find orchids that were new to Dr Rogers and this fired his enthusiasm so that he began a serious study of our orchid flora.

One day in 1928 on a visit to Dr Rogers, Harold was shown the very first collection of the underground orchid Rhizanthella gardeneri. This was to be the subject of the last article Harold wrote over 50 years later.

With the passing of Dr Rogers in 1942 Harold became the foremost authority on South Australian orchids corresponding regularly with H M R Rupp, W H Nicholls and A W Dockrill. His extensive collection of pressed orchids was donated to the SA State Herbarium in 1978.

Harold wrote many articles on orchids his best known being "Common Orchids of South Australia" which appeared in the Sth Aust Naturalist in June 1944 and was used in National Parks and Wild Life Reserves book from 1965-1970. Harold also revised the orchid section of Black's Flora of South Australia in 1943.

Besides drawing and photographing the Sth Aust orchids Harold developed a large personal Orchid Library and cultivated many Australian orchids which he displayed at shows including our NOSSA shows. The first registered Pterostylis hybrid, Pterostylis 'Cutie'. was made by Harold and the name given to the original clone now grown by hundreds of orchid lovers is "Harolds Pride!".

His main interest was to enthuse others to see the beauty and value of our native orchids through his articles and the many illustrated talks he gave to natural history groups.

Harold was a member of the Royal Society of Sth Australia.

He was a Foundation Member of the Australian Native Orchid Society (ANOS).

Ever ready for a challenge Harold at age 64 began studying for his Engineering and Surveying Certificate gaining distinctions in Maths, then working on the surveying of Adelaide's SE Freeway.

Harold Goldsack's name is commemorated in the South Australian endemic orchid Prasophyllum goldsackii, a fitting tribute to a true orchid lover.

Written by: R Bates, May 1989

Source: Extracted from: Native Orchid Society of South Australia (NOSSA), Journal 1989 Volume 13 No 4, May
Portrait Photo: (can anyone supply a photo ?).

Collecting localities for 'Goldsack, H.' from AVH (2021)

Data from 311 specimens