Royen, Pieter van   (1923 - 2002)

Van Royen was born in Lahat in Sumatra, Indonesia, but moved to the Netherlands with his family when he was ten years old.

After fighting with the Dutch Resistance in the Second World War, he went on to gain his BSc and MSc, and a PhD at the University of Utrecht in 1951 with the first volume of a monograph on the 'Podostemaceae of the Neotropics', the second and third volumes of which he presented in 1953 and 1954, respectively.

Following his doctoral studies van Royen spent 11 years as a botanist at the Rijksherbarium, during which time he collected plants extensively in Papua New Guinea (1954-1955) in co-operation with Christiaan Versteegh of the Forest Service there. He travelled back to Papua New Guinea in 1962 as head of the Lae Botanical Gardens and chief of the Papua New Guinea National Herbarium.

He then worked at the Queensland Herbarium in Brisbane, Australia, during 1964-1965, before joining the Department of Botany at the Bishop Museum in Hawaii (BISH) as a herbarium curator in 1967.

Van Royen remained at BISH until his retirement in 1983, at which time he was director of the department.

The Bishop Museum has one of the finest collections of Papuan alpine flora thanks to his fieldwork.

In his 70s, following the death of his wife, van Royen moved to Portland, Oregon, where he died in 2002.

The genus Vanroyena Aubrév. commemorates him.

Source: Extracted from:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pieter_van_Royen
https://plants.jstor.org/stable/history/10.5555/al.ap.person.bm000153758

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/articles/Pieter_van_Royen
Portrait Photo: none, seeking portrait.

Collecting localities for 'Royen, P.' from AVH (2024)

Data from 3,717 specimens in Australian herbaria