Rogers, Roderick Westgarth (Rod)   (1944 - )

Born 1944, Adelaide, SA;

Rod Rogers has retired as a Professor of Botany at the University of Queensland.

He is a graduate of the University of Adelaide (1961-1970), taking his degree with specialisation in lichen ecology.

He collaborated with Rex Filson on Lichens of South Australia in 1979 (the first Australian regional lichen flora to be published in the 20th century). He published The Genera of Australian Lichens in 1981 (a monograph with descriptions of the lichen genera found in Australia with identification keys allowing users to identify a lichen to genus. It was the first modern compilation of such information).

The International Botanical Congress was held in Sydney in 1981 and this brought many of the world's leading lichenologists to Australia. As well as meetings, there were also two lichenological excursions, one before and one after the Congress. Before the Congress there was a 10-day excursion focussing on dry-area lichens and was led by Rod Rogers. This attracted participants from Australia, Germany, Scandinavia and the USA and the group visited sites between Adelaide and Melbourne.

Rod has published extensively on Australian lichens since then including;
The Corticolous Species of Haematomma in Australia (1982)
The Lichen Genus Haematomma in New Zealand (1986)
Chemical variation and the species concept in lichenized ascomycetes (1989)
Lichen ecology and biogeography (1992)
Soil surface lichens on a 1500 kilometre climatic gradient in subtropical eastern Australia (2006)

In 1999 Rod was awarded a D.Sc. by the University of Adelaide for his combined solo and collaborative publications over the previous 25 years.

Lichenological activity commenced at the University of Queensland in 1971, when Rod Rogers brought a small collection with him from Adelaide to the Botany Department (BRIU), and continued with lichen studies. Rogers and his students built up this collection over the period 1971 until 1992. The collection numbers over 20,000 packages, and is rich in tropical and subtropical material. It has now been transferred to BRI. The transfer took place following a cessation of lichen taxonomy by Rogers and Nell Stevens in the department, and under pressure of space within the Botany Department.

Since 2001 Rod has been an Honorary Research Associate at the University of Queensland.

In 2016 Rod published Lichens of subtropical Queensland, an Online resource with illustrations, only available electronically in PDF through Qld Herbarium website:
(https://www.qld.gov.au/environment/plants- animals/plants/herbarium/publications)
In his preface he states:

"It is now more than 50 years since I first started to study lichens, and is over 40 years since I came to Brisbane as a young academic. I have seen too many Botanists die without making the information they had gathered available to others. This set of keys is intended to ensure that future lichenologists have a convenient starting point, and that until they spring into action, those who wish to name a lichen collected in Queensland south of the tropic have a working document available."

Source: Extracted from:
Filson, Rex B. 'History of Australian Lichenology' in Flora of Australia, Vol.54 (1992)
Lepp, H. (2011): https://www.anbg.gov.au/lichen/history-3.html
ASBS Newsletter, No. 178, p.65, March 2019
R. W. Rogers & G. P. Guymer, 'Lichen collections in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia', Taxon Vol. 42, No. 3 (Aug., 1993), pp. 719-721
Portrait Photo: 1982, extracted from a print by Jack Elix.

Collecting localities for 'Rogers, R.W.' from AVH (2023)

Data from 7,886 specimens