Trudgen, Malcolm Eric   (1951 - )

Born in 1951 in Subiaco, Western Australia;

Attended Armadale, Perth Modern and Tuart Hill State secondary schools.

Completed a Bachelor of Science, majoring in botany, from the University of Western Australia in 1973.

From March 1973 to mid 1976, he worked at the Western Australian Herbarium as a Senior Technician. This position involved substantial amounts of identification of specimens of native flora as well as curatorial work.

From 1975 he undertook research on the taxonomy of parts of the plant family Myrtaceae, resulting in the description of new genera and species, the re-instatement of genera that had erroneously been placed in synonomy and re-interpretation of the relationships of previously described species and genera; a project covering more than four hundred species and twenty genera.

Since 2003 some of the work has been done jointly with Dr Barbara Rye of the Western Australian Herbarium.

He served for two and a half years on the National Parks and Nature Conservation Authority, one of two State Government Authorities that oversaw the Department of Conservation and Land Management (now Department of Environment and Conservation).

As a personal interest he studied the flora of the Pilbara Bioregion (Fortescue Botanical District). Part of the work carried out was done in association with consulting work relating to projects in the region, but private trips were also made. This included the collection and identification of more than ten thousand specimens and the collation of a database of vegetation site descriptions.

In the later part of his life he was involved with environmental consulting with his own consulting company, 'ME Trudgen and Associates'. This involved in a wide range of projects and working in many areas of Western Australia, mostly south of the Kimberleys but with some studies there also.

He has been honoured in several plant names, including:
• Acacia trudgeniana Maslin, Fabaceae
• Micromyrtus trudgenii Rye, Myrtaceae
• Pilbara trudgenii Lander, Asteraceae
• Stylidium trudgenii Lowrie & Kenneally, Stylidiaceae

Source: Extracted from:
Pers. Comm. M. Trudgen (2024)
Portrait Photo: 2004, Bruce Maslin.

Collecting localities for 'Trudgen, M.' from AVH (2024)

Data from 10,805 specimens