NATURALIST HONOURED

Press, Volume C, Issue 29511, 12 May 1961, Page 15

NATURALIST HONOURED

Loder Cup For Dunedin Man

"The Press" Special Service DUNEDIN, May 11. More than 1000 specimens of New Zealand mosses were sent overseas last year by Mr William Martin, a Dunedin naturalist.

A leading authority on the flora of New Zealand, Mr Martin is consulted by universities from all over the world.

His private collection of dried New Zealand mosses and lichens is the largest in the world, and he has even had a moss named after him —Blindta Martini. Tnis was revealed in a citation read when Mr Martin's lifetime of work and study of the country’s flora was recognised by the Royal New Zealand Institute of Horticulture. He became the fifth Otago man to receive the Loder Cup, given more than 50 years ago by Gerald Loder “to encourage the protection and cultivation of the incomparable flora of the Dominion."

The presentation was made by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr Hayman).

The citation, read by Mr R. W. Balch, hailed Mr Martin as one of the last active all-round naturalists. Since his retirement in 1945. Mr Martin has spent six years investigating the flora of Stewart Island, and recorded 400 bryophytes, or flowerless plants, not previously known on the island. Recently he gave 7000 specimens of New Zealand mosses to the botany division of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Lincoln, and a collection of native flowering plant specimens to the Dominion Museum, Wellington.