Harold Ernest Robinson (May 22, 1932 – December 17, 2020) was an American botanist and entomologist.

Career

Robinson's specialty was the sunflower family (Asteraceae) and the bryophytes. He has named or described over 2,800 new species and subtribes, more than one tenth of the number of species in the Asteraceae. This figure is also about one quarter of the number of flowering plants described by Carl Linnaeus. Robinson wrote over 650 publications, mainly on the Asteraceae, mosses (Bryophyta), Marchantiophyta, and the long-legged fly family Dolichopodidae (describing over 200 new species and 6 new genera, such as Harmstonia and Nanomyina) and many other subjects. He received a B.S. from Ohio University in 1955, an M.S. from the University of Tennessee in 1957, a Ph.D. from Duke University in 1960. From 1960 to 1962 as assistant professor at Wofford College (Spartanburg, South Carolina), he became Associate Curator of lower plants at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington (1960–1962). Later he was appointed Associate Curator (1964–1971) and finally Curator of Botany from 1971.

Research

Robinson, together with collaborators, investigated the taxonomy of several bryophytes, green algae (co-naming a new genus Struveopsis), and vines of family Hippocrateaceae (now a synonym of the staff vine family Celastraceae). He made a study of the phylogeny of the genus Houstonia of the madder family. Robinson's major interest went to the sunflower family (Asteraceae). In the neotropical tribe Eupatorieae, Robinson (with co-worker King) has named at least one species in 27 of the genera. He later worked on the reorganization of the tribes Senecioneae, Heliantheae, Liabeae, and Vernonieae. Robinson has made a detailed study of the many secondary metabolite chemicals found in the Eupatorieae tribe, such as alkaloids, (poly)acetylenes, and terpenoids (see Ichthyothere), together with Robert Merrill King and Ferdinand Bohlmann. This resulted in a large number of publications mostly in the journal Phytochemistry in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1970 Robinson and King stressed the need for diagnostic character analysis in his classic article entitled The New Synantherology. In 1974 Robinson named a new subtribe Luziolinae of oryzoid (= rice-like) grasses Poaceae, but this was not supported by molecular study. Robinson also named the small genus Synanthes of epiphytic orchids from Paraguay, as well as named 32 new species from the bromeliad family. These were mostly in the genera Navia and Lindmania, Connellia, and Cottendorfia, such as Navia albiflora and Navia aliciae. In 1999 he merged Pepinia into Pitcairnia at generic level. He made several illustrations for the Catalog of Botanical Illustrations, Smithsonian Institution, such as for Brewcaria duidensis. In 1986 Robinson gave a critical but constructive opinion on cladistics in the article. "A Key to the Common Errors of Cladistics".

Awards and legacy

In 2010, Robinson received the Asa Gray Award, the highest honour of the American Society of Plant Taxonomists. In 1996, the plant genus Robinsonecio (in the family Asteraceae) from Mexico and Guatemala, and then Haroldia, which is a genus of flowering plants belonging to the family Asteraceae, was published in 2009, were both named in his honour.

Selected works