Frank Ludlow graduated from Cambridge in 1908 with a BA in natural sciences and on leaving university was appointed vice principal at Sind College, Karachi. During the First World War he served in Mesopotamia after which he went to Poona as Inspector of European Schools. In 1923 he opened a new school at Gyantse, Tibet. Although this closed in 1926 he remained on good terms with the Tibetan government and was almost uniquely allowed access to that country for a number of years. In 1927 he retired to Srinigar in Kashmir and from this date started travelling extensively, collecting birds and plants for the British Museum of Natural History. In 1928 he met George Sherriff in Kashgar in Chinese Turkestan and with their shared interests in ornithology, travel and plants they began a lifelong friendship which led to a series of major expeditions to the Eastern Himalayas and South East Tibet. During the 1930s they trekked through the Tian Shan mountains, Sikkim, Bhutan and Tibet, collecting thousands of plant specimens, though on these journeys Ludlow was more concerned with the collection of birds on which he wrote extensively. During the Second World War Ludlow was in charge of British Mission in Lhasa from 1942 to 1943 and was Joint Commissioner in Ladakh from 1940-42 and again from 1943-46. He continued collecting in 1946 setting off for South East Tibet again with Sherriff. Their sixth and final great expedition together was collecting alpine and temperate flora in Bhutan in 1949. They both returned to Britain in 1950 where Ludlow spent his remaining years working on their collections in the British Museum.
Sources: R. Desmond ‘Dictionary of British and Irish Botanists and Horticulturalists; obituary folder; H.R. Fletcher ‘A Quest for Flowers’.
D.W.
Studied botany at the Queen Mary College at the University of London. After graduation, moved to University of Leeds, completed a PhD on Apslenium trichomanes with Prof. Irene Manton. Received a DSIR Postgraduate Fellowship to study in New Zealand for a year where he collected 75% of the native fern speices. He completed his PhD in 1958 and was appointed to a lectureship at the University of Leeds.
Over the next 20 years, Lovis would continue to study the complexities of evolution through hybridisation of Asplenium. He was the first to artificially reconstruct a naturally occurring polyploid fern, and later was able to synthesise a new and artificial alloploid species unknown in the wild. In 1977, published 'Evolutionary patterns and processes in ferns' in Advances in Botanical Research, which summarised all of his cytology work in ferns to date. 1978, he was awarded a degree of Doctor of Science from the University of London for his contributions to the understanding of fern evolution.
1977, Lovis became the Professor and Chair of Botany at University of Canterbury (New Zealand). There he took an interest in fossil botany. He led regular student trips to the Cass field station and other parts of the South Island and collected intensively from the plant groups he was researching or just interested in.
Lovis was a man of many talents and interests. In his younger days quite the athlete in a variety of sports: bowling, cricket, and hockey. Loved learning about wine and ran a wine appreciation courses at Canterbury University's Department of Continuing Education. He loved photography, rugby, classical music, cheese, and Ceylon tea.
After his death in 2017, his daughter donated his whole collection to Te Papa (New Zealand).
created the rhododendron gates at the RBGE East Gate entrance, Inverleith