Biography

South African botanist. Born on the farm Vierfontein, Ficksburg District, Free State, Rodney Moffett was educated in Bloemfontein and trained at the Forestry College in George, Southern Cape. His first job was as a government forester; he then worked with a private firm and as a horticulturist in the nursery and seed industry.

In 1970, although married with children, he made the decision to switch to a career in science. Giving up a stable job, he became a full-time student at the University of Stellenbosch, majoring in Botany and Geology, in time earning both BSc(Hons.) and MSc degrees. The fieldwork to support his student research was conducted in the arid areas of South Africa and Namibia, especially in the Richtersveld (1974-1977).

His first substantial scientific paper came out of an honours project on the flora and vegetation of the Cango Cave area near Oudtshoorn, where he made his first collections. His MSc dissertation, a taxonomic revision of Sarcocaulon (Geraniaceae), received the Junior Captain Scott Medal from the South African Biological Society for best thesis in the year 1978-1979. This work, later published in 1984, was the beginning of a long collaboration with the botanical artist Ellaphie Ward-Hilhorst, whose work enhanced his publications throughout his career.

In 1977, while employed as a temporary lecturer at the Pietersburg campus of the University of the North (now University of the Free State), he began working on Rhus. During that year he collected specimens of the genus across the old Transvaal; and subsequently, as a Senior Lecturer, and later as Associate Professor, in taxonomy at the University of the Western Cape, Bellville (1978-1985), he collected Rhus over the rest of South Africa and Namibia. In 1986, he returned for a year to government service as Curator of Stellenbosch Herbarium; concentrating in under-collected areas of the Western Cape and the Karroo, he added about 2,000 specimens to the herbarium. The following year he was tempted by his fluency in Sesotho and his love of mountaineering (he had been a member of the Mountain Club of South Africa since 1968) to accept a position in the Department of Botany of the University of the North, at its Qwaqwa Campus, which is situated in the Sesotho homeland at the foot of the Drakensberg Mountains.

Despite the increased workload and responsibility that came with his promotions to Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Science, he managed to complete the revision of Rhus for a PhD at the University of Stellenbosch and then embarked with the help of assistants on a collection of the flora of Qwaqwa. This collection now forms the bulk of the QWA herbarium and resulted in a paper on the flora and vegetation of the area.

After taking early retirement in 1999, he spent five years as a freelance editor. Then from 2004 until 2006, he was rehired as a temporary Associate Professor. Besides teaching, he resumed his study of Rhus, looking at the generic status of the old world Rhus species. Since retiring, for a third time, he has resumed freelance editing and continues work on a new project, the compilation of a Sesotho plant name dictionary. He is a member of the South African Association of Botanists, and was Chairman of the Western Cape Branch in the 1970s, and is a former Fellow of the Linnean Society. His collecting numbers have reached 5,600, although he no longer actively collects because of foot problems associated with diabetes. He is the author of The Grasses of the Eastern Free State: Their Description and Uses (1997), as well as several full-length articles, mainly on Rhus, in specialist journals.

Sources:
Personal communication, December 2006.

Biography

South African botanist. Born on the farm Vierfontein, Ficksburg District, Free State, Rodney Moffett was educated in Bloemfontein and trained at the Forestry College in George, Southern Cape. His first job was as a government forester; he then worked with a private firm and as a horticulturist in the nursery and seed industry.

In 1970, although married with children, he made the decision to switch to a career in science. Giving up a stable job, he became a full-time student at the University of Stellenbosch, majoring in Botany and Geology, in time earning both BSc(Hons.) and MSc degrees. The fieldwork to support his student research was conducted in the arid areas of South Africa and Namibia, especially in the Richtersveld (1974-1977).

His first substantial scientific paper came out of an honours project on the flora and vegetation of the Cango Cave area near Oudtshoorn, where he made his first collections. His MSc dissertation, a taxonomic revision of Sarcocaulon (Geraniaceae), received the Junior Captain Scott Medal from the South African Biological Society for best thesis in the year 1978-1979. This work, later published in 1984, was the beginning of a long collaboration with the botanical artist Ellaphie Ward-Hilhorst, whose work enhanced his publications throughout his career.

In 1977, while employed as a temporary lecturer at the Pietersburg campus of the University of the North (now University of the Free State), he began working on Rhus. During that year he collected specimens of the genus across the old Transvaal; and subsequently, as a Senior Lecturer, and later as Associate Professor, in taxonomy at the University of the Western Cape, Bellville (1978-1985), he collected Rhus over the rest of South Africa and Namibia. In 1986, he returned for a year to government service as Curator of Stellenbosch Herbarium; concentrating in under-collected areas of the Western Cape and the Karroo, he added about 2,000 specimens to the herbarium. The following year he was tempted by his fluency in Sesotho and his love of mountaineering (he had been a member of the Mountain Club of South Africa since 1968) to accept a position in the Department of Botany of the University of the North, at its Qwaqwa Campus, which is situated in the Sesotho homeland at the foot of the Drakensberg Mountains.

Despite the increased workload and responsibility that came with his promotions to Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Science, he managed to complete the revision of Rhus for a PhD at the University of Stellenbosch and then embarked with the help of assistants on a collection of the flora of Qwaqwa. This collection now forms the bulk of the QWA herbarium and resulted in a paper on the flora and vegetation of the area.

After taking early retirement in 1999, he spent five years as a freelance editor. Then from 2004 until 2006, he was rehired as a temporary Associate Professor. Besides teaching, he resumed his study of Rhus, looking at the generic status of the old world Rhus species. Since retiring, for a third time, he has resumed freelance editing and continues work on a new project, the compilation of a Sesotho plant name dictionary. He is a member of the South African Association of Botanists, and was Chairman of the Western Cape Branch in the 1970s, and is a former Fellow of the Linnean Society. His collecting numbers have reached 5,600, although he no longer actively collects because of foot problems associated with diabetes. He is the author of The Grasses of the Eastern Free State: Their Description and Uses (1997), as well as several full-length articles, mainly on Rhus, in specialist journals.

Sources:
Personal communication, December 2006.

Biography

South African botanist. Born on the farm Vierfontein, Ficksburg District, Free State, Rodney Moffett was educated in Bloemfontein and trained at the Forestry College in George, Southern Cape. His first job was as a government forester; he then worked with a private firm and as a horticulturist in the nursery and seed industry.

In 1970, although married with children, he made the decision to switch to a career in science. Giving up a stable job, he became a full-time student at the University of Stellenbosch, majoring in Botany and Geology, in time earning both BSc(Hons.) and MSc degrees. The fieldwork to support his student research was conducted in the arid areas of South Africa and Namibia, especially in the Richtersveld (1974-1977).

His first substantial scientific paper came out of an honours project on the flora and vegetation of the Cango Cave area near Oudtshoorn, where he made his first collections. His MSc dissertation, a taxonomic revision of Sarcocaulon (Geraniaceae), received the Junior Captain Scott Medal from the South African Biological Society for best thesis in the year 1978-1979. This work, later published in 1984, was the beginning of a long collaboration with the botanical artist Ellaphie Ward-Hilhorst, whose work enhanced his publications throughout his career.

In 1977, while employed as a temporary lecturer at the Pietersburg campus of the University of the North (now University of the Free State), he began working on Rhus. During that year he collected specimens of the genus across the old Transvaal; and subsequently, as a Senior Lecturer, and later as Associate Professor, in taxonomy at the University of the Western Cape, Bellville (1978-1985), he collected Rhus over the rest of South Africa and Namibia. In 1986, he returned for a year to government service as Curator of Stellenbosch Herbarium; concentrating in under-collected areas of the Western Cape and the Karroo, he added about 2,000 specimens to the herbarium. The following year he was tempted by his fluency in Sesotho and his love of mountaineering (he had been a member of the Mountain Club of South Africa since 1968) to accept a position in the Department of Botany of the University of the North, at its Qwaqwa Campus, which is situated in the Sesotho homeland at the foot of the Drakensberg Mountains.

Despite the increased workload and responsibility that came with his promotions to Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Science, he managed to complete the revision of Rhus for a PhD at the University of Stellenbosch and then embarked with the help of assistants on a collection of the flora of Qwaqwa. This collection now forms the bulk of the QWA herbarium and resulted in a paper on the flora and vegetation of the area.

After taking early retirement in 1999, he spent five years as a freelance editor. Then from 2004 until 2006, he was rehired as a temporary Associate Professor. Besides teaching, he resumed his study of Rhus, looking at the generic status of the old world Rhus species. Since retiring, for a third time, he has resumed freelance editing and continues work on a new project, the compilation of a Sesotho plant name dictionary. He is a member of the South African Association of Botanists, and was Chairman of the Western Cape Branch in the 1970s, and is a former Fellow of the Linnean Society. His collecting numbers have reached 5,600, although he no longer actively collects because of foot problems associated with diabetes. He is the author of The Grasses of the Eastern Free State: Their Description and Uses (1997), as well as several full-length articles, mainly on Rhus, in specialist journals.

Sources:
Personal communication, December 2006.