Perry, Gillian (née Jenkins) (1943 - 2011)
Born 19th October 1943 , died 22nd August 2011
Gillian Perry, one of Australia's foremost
botanical nomenclaturists, passed away
suddenly and unexpectedly on the return
journey to Perth from the XVIII International
Botanical Congress in Melbourne. This is a
sad loss to Australia and to the international
botanical community.
An intensely private person, Gillian's role in
global nomenclature was perhaps not well
known to many Australians. Her role, however,
was considerable. She attended, and was
active in, the Nomenclature Sections of every
International Botanical Congress from 1981 to
2011.
Gillian became fascinated by nomenclature
following her first Congress, in Sydney in 1981.
During her time as a nomenclaturist Gillian
authored or co-authored no fewer than 69
proposals to amend and clarify the Code as well as advising on countless others.
By Kevin Thiele
From her husband Michael Perry's eulogy:
Gillian had joined the Western Australian
Herbarium, located at the time within the WA
Department of Agriculture, in 1971 and worked
initially on the genus Logania. It was pursued
with her normal intensity and over many
holidays we traversed most of southern WA and
South Australia looking for the elusive plant.
Gill's interest, however, soon turned to the
weed flora of the state and she quickly became
the reference point and oracle for the officers
of the Agricultural Protection Board charged
with property inspections and the application
of the various Acts governing plants.
The decision to transfer the Herbarium to CALM
in 1987, however, was not a move that worked
in Gill's favour. Typically, Gillian would not be moved, and
she decided that
what she wanted to do was more important than
what CALM wanted done, and in April 1994,
after 21 years service as a botanist, there was a
parting of the ways.
At the IBC congress in
Berlin in 1987 Gill had become
a member of the 'Committee for Vascular
Plants', the body that ruled on taxonomists
proposals to change the name of a plant taxon.
Over the next twenty-four years Gill's influence on the
International Code (the rule book for changing
plant names) grew and grew. With others she
made proposals at each Congress to modify and
improve the Code and she once said that "Some of my words appear
in nearly every article of the code".
She passed away
suddenly and unexpectedly on the return
journey to Perth from the XVIII International
Botanical Congress in Melbourne.
Source: Extracted from her Obituary: Australasian Systematic Botany Society Newsletter 149 (December 2011) p.23-35
Portrait Photo: 1977, Chippendale, G., ANBG Photo Collection, h-362.
Collecting localities for 'Perry, G.' from AVH (2021)
Data from 1,992 specimens