Francis Rose

Francis Rose MBE (29 September 1921 – 15 July 2006) was an English field botanist and conservationist. He was an author, researcher and teacher. His ecological interests in Britain and Europe included bryophytes, fungi, lichens, higher plants, plant communities and woodlands.

Rose was born in south London. He studied natural sciences at Chelsea Polytechnic and Queen Mary College, University of London, graduating with a degree in botany. He obtained a PhD in 1953, studying the structure and ecology of British lowland bogs.

From 1949, he taught at Bedford College and other colleges in London. In 1964, he joined the geography department as Senior Lecturer in Biogeography at King's College London, becoming a Reader in 1975 until 1981.

He married in 1943 to Pauline and had a family of three sons and a daughter. Rose was awarded the MBE in 2000. He died at Liss in Hampshire.

The lichen genus Francisrosea was named in his honour in 2021.

Books

The Wild Flower Key — How to identify wild plants, trees and shrubs in Britain and Ireland, 1981. Revised by Clare O'Reilly, 2006. Frederick Warne. . Colour Identification Guide to the Grasses, Sedges, Rushes and Ferns of the British Isles and North Western Europe, 1989. Viking. . The Flora of Hampshire, 1996. Co-authored with Richard Mabey, Lady Anne Brewis and Paul Bowman. Harley Books. . Francis Rose and Pat Wolseley 1984 Nettlecombe Park: Its History and Its Epiphytic Lichens - An Attempt at Correlation Co-authored with Pat Wolseley. Academic Journal Offprint from The Journal of the Field Studies Council, Volume 6, No. 1, November 1984. 50 pp, 14 figs The Observer's Book of Wild Flowers, 3rd edition, 1978, Frederick Warne & Co. Ltd Lichens as Pollution Monitors. Co-authored with David L. Hawksworth, 1976. Edward Arnold. The Observer's Book of Grasses Sedges and Rushes, 1974. Frederick Warne & Co. Ltd

For a full list of publications see Obituary in Watsonia.