Scott, George Anderson Macdonald   (1933 - 1998)

Born on 10 March 1933 in Glasgow, Scotland; died of a heart attack on 23 March 1998 while on vacation at Christchurch, New Zealand.

Educated at Glasgow High School (dux 1951), he excelled academically and in rugby, cricket, and athletics.

In October 1951 he started a degree in medicine at the University of Glasgow, but after contracting tuberculosis he deferred his course for almost two years. On returning to university, he changed his area of study and graduated with first-class honours and a gold medal in botany (BSc, 1957).

He went on to complete postgraduate studies at the University College of North Wales, Bangor (PhD, 1961), his research focusing on the ecology of shingle beach plants. Influenced by his supervisor, Paul Westmacott Richards, he developed an interest in bryology: the study of mosses, liverworts, and hornworts.

He married in 1960 and the next year the couple moved to New Zealand, where he took up a position as assistant lecturer in botany at the University of Otago, Dunedin. He was promoted to lecturer in 1962 and senior lecturer in 1969. New Zealand's wet forests, with their diversity and abundance of bryophytes, provided the ideal opportunity for Scott to pursue his interest in bryology, ecology, and conservation.

In 1970 Scott moved to Melbourne, accepting a three-year senior research fellowship at Monash University. He was subsequently appointed senior lecturer (1973-83) and then reader (1984-86) in botany. In addition to teaching and supervising students in ecology and bryology, he produced two significant books: The Mosses of Southern Australia (1976), co-authored with Ilma Grace Stone and with illustrations by Celia Rosser; and Southern Australian Liverworts (1985).

Scott was elected a fellow of the Linnean Society of London in 1986. He had been appointed (1978) to the bryophyte committee of the International Association for Plant Taxonomy and served as a council member (1981-93) of the International Association of Bryologists.

In 1986 Scott departed from Monash University and became master of Queen's College at the University of Melbourne (DSc, 1990).

He retired from Queen's in 1992 due to poor health but continued to pursue his bryological interests as a research fellow in the school of botany.

Source: Extracted from: https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/scott-george-anderson-32385
Portrait Photo: 1991, M.Fagg

Collecting localities for 'Scott, G.A.M.' from AVH (2023)

Data from 1244 specimens