J. K. Morton
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Name
John K. Morton
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Dates
1928 -
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Specialities
Spermatophytes
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Roles
Author, Determiner, Collector
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Notes
Not referenced at data migration
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From Flora of North America Newsletter 25(1): 14-15. 2011.:
John K. Morton
1928–2011
J
ohn Kenneth Morton, a
contributor to the Flora of
North America, died on
January 9, 2011, at his residence in Waterloo, Ontario.
He was born in Yorkshire,
England, and completed his
B.Sc. (1949) and Ph.D. (1953)
at King’s College, Durham
(now the University of
Newcastle). From 1951 to
1961, he was a lecturer in the
Botany Department at the University of Ghana. He was
lecturer at the University of London, U. K., Birkbeck
College, from 1961–63, after which he returned to
Africa, becoming Professor and Head of the Botany department at the University of Sierra Leone from 1963 to
1967. In 1968, he came to North America as Professor
of Biology at the University of Waterloo, a position he
held until he retired in 1994. During his career at the
University of Waterloo, he chaired the department from
1974 to 1980 and supervised 11 graduate students, including Luc Brouillet. Richard K. Rabeler also benefited
from his expertise; John was the outside examiner on his
dissertation at Michigan State University. John published
approximately 140 papers, mostly in refereed journals,
over his rich career.
In both Africa and Canada, John engaged in taxonomic research, notably using cytotaxonomy and
cytogeography, and in floristics and phytogeography. He
did extensive field work, collecting a large number of
specimens; in North America, much of his work focused
on Ontario and a number of trips to the southern United
States. His personal collection of about 15,000 sheets
will be divided, with MO receiving his African material
and TRT receiving his other, chiefly North American
specimens. Some of his collections are included at WAT,
with many duplicates and cytological vouchers also
found elsewhere.
Much of his taxonomic work encompassed biosystematic studies in the family Caryophyllaceae, especially
the genera Cerastium, Stellaria, and Silene. Cytology
was an important component of many of his studies,
dating from his early work on polyploidy in the family
in Britain and Portugal (Blackburn & Morton 1957:
New Phytologist 56:344–352). His early experiences
with these plants in their native European environs also
proved useful in his North American work; as an example, John was the first to report Stellaria pallida in North
America (1972). He was also interested in the Lamiaceae
and in the Solidago canadensis group (Asteraceae). His
vast interests also led him to publish an “An atlas of pollen of the trees and shrubs of eastern Canada and the
adjacent United States”(1972, 1974, 1976, 1979) with
R. J. Adams. In floristics, John became a specialist in the
flora of Ontario, producing several works in collaboration with Joan M. Venn: A Checklist of the Flora of
Ontario. Vascular Plants (1990); The Flora of the -
Collections