Geoffrey Thomas Sandford Baylis

Geoffrey Thomas Sandford Baylis (24 November 1913 – 31 December 2003) was a New Zealand botanist and Emeritus Professor specialising in plant pathology and mycorrhiza. He was employed at the University of Otago for 34 years undertaking research into plant and fungal ecology and symbiotic interactions, taxonomy and anatomy. He collected hundreds of plant specimens in the field and founded the Otago Regional Herbarium (OTA). He discovered the sole Pennantia baylisiana living on Three Kings Island in 1945, and was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 1961.

Early life and education Baylis was born in Palmerston North to Gerald Baylis, an agricultural scientist, and his wife Daisy (Kathleen Daisy Baylis (nee Aston), sister of New Zealand botanist Bernard Aston). The family moved to Campbells Bay on Auckland's North Shore in 1920, where Geoff and his sister Geraldine attended Takapuna Primary School and were then some of the first students at Campbells Bay School.

Geoff attended Takapuna Grammar School before enrolling at the University of Auckland (then Auckland University College) in 1931.

Professional life In 1946, he was appointed Lecturer-in-Charge of Botany at University of Otago, taking over from the Rev. Dr J. E. Holloway. Based on his numerous plant collections, Baylis founded the Otago Regional Herbarium (OTA), which is located at the Botany Department at the University of Otago. His pioneering experiments on endomycorrhizae in broadleaf (Griselinia littoralis) showed that seedlings growing in natural soils develop vescicular-arbuscular mycorrhizae by associating with fungi that assist with phosphorus uptake, whereas seedlings that did not develop such mycorrhizae stagnated. Other researchers at the University of Otago (including Baylis and his research students) and elsewhere completed similar studies on other plants thereby extending his early results.

The annual Geoff Baylis Lecture was established by the Botanical Society of Otago in 2002 to honour his contributions to the society and field of botany. Geoff Baylis was the speaker at the inaugural lecture in 2002, and as of 2022 there have been a total of 20 different lectures and speakers in the intervening years.

Eponymy The following species of plants and fungi have been named in honour of Geoff Baylis:

The critically endangered tree, Pennantia baylisiana (W.R.B.Oliv) G.T.S.Baylis, or Three Kings kaikōmako. but is also known from Tasmania, Australia. The critically endangered secotioid fungus Deconica baylisiana (E. Horak) J.A. Cooper (originally described by Egon Horak in 1971 as Nivatogastrium baylisianum E. Horak).

Family and personal life In his younger years, Baylis was an avid mountaineer and took part in several climbing trips to the Southern Alps. In 1965 he and his climbing companions had to be rescued by plane after being trapped by bad weather on the Volta Glacier.

Elingamita G.T.S.Baylis Elingamita johnsonii G.T.S.Baylis Solanum aviculare var. latifolium G.T.S.Baylis Solanum capsiciforme (Domin) G.T.S.Baylis

Selected works

Image Gallery