John Patrick Rourke


John Patrick Rourke FMLS is a South African botanist, who worked at the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden and became curator of the Compton Herbarium. He is a specialist in the flora of the Cape Floristic Region, in particular the family Proteaceae.

Career

Rourke studied at the University of Cape Town from 1960 to 1970, where he obtained his B.Sc., M.Sc. and Ph.D. He started working at Kirstenbosch from 1966, and succeeded Winsome Fanny Barker as curator of the Compton Herbarium in 1972. He published several revisions of Proteacean genera including Leucadendron, Leucospermum, Mimetes, Vexatorella, Sorocephalus and Spatalla.
During his career he collected approximately 2000 specimens of flora from the southwestern and southern Cape, Namaqualand and eastern Transvaal.
In 1997 he was made foreign member of the Linnean Society of London. In 2003 Rourke was awarded the "Gold medal for Lifetime Preservation of the Environment" by The Cape Tercentenary Foundation.

Eponyms

Several plant species were named in his honour including: