N.Z. BOTANIST HONOURED

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 507, 9 November 1928, Page 9

N.Z. BOTANIST HONOURED

DARWIN MEDAL FOR DR. COCKAYNE ROYAL SOCIETY’S AWARD (United P.A.—By Telegraph — Gopyi'ight) (Australian and N.Z. Press Association) LONDON, Thursday. The Royal Society has awarded the Darwin Medal to a New Zealander, Dr. Leonard Cockayne, for his research into Eclological Botany. The medal, which is accompanied by a grant of £IOO, is given every two years as a reward for work of acknowledged distinction, especially in the field of biology, in which Darwin himself laboured. The award may be either to a British subject or to a foreigner, and is without distinction of sex. The Darwin Medal has been awarded, among others, to Alfred Russell Wallace, 1890; Sir J. D. Hooker, 1892; T. H. Huxley, 1894; Ernest Haeckel, 1900; Francis Galton, 1902; William Bateson, 1904; August Weismann, 1908; Francis Darwin, 1912; Yves Delage, 1916; Thos. H. Morgan, 1924; and Duckinfield Henry Scott, 1926. Dr. Cockayne’s is the 20th medal awarded. Dr. Leonard Cockayne, who is now 73 years of age, is honorary botanist to the New Zealand State Forest Service. He was born in England, and after teaching in Australia came to the Dominion in 1881 following his profession for a few years, and afterwards farming near Christchurch. Pie started a private botanical experimental station in 1882, introducing thousands of fruit trees, shrubs and herbs. Since ISSB he has devoted his whole time to research on the flora and vegetation of New Zealand, and exploring botanioally most parts of the Dominion, the Chathams and sub-Arctic islands. He is the author of several works on New Zealand plants and vegetation. Dr. Cockayne has been a member of various Royal Commissions on Forests, and is a member of the Board of Governors of the New Zealand Institute, of which he was president in 1918-19. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1912. His honours include that of Ph.D. of the Munich University <1903», First Hector Medal and Prize for Botany (1912), and the Hutton Memorial Medal (1914).