Hans Runemark

Per Hans Bengt Runemark (7 January 1927 – 11 December 2014) was a Swedish botanist and lichenologist who served as professor of systematic botany at Lund University from 1970 to 1992. Born in Chicago, USA, he graduated from Lund University in 1956 with pioneering research on the lichen genus Rhizocarpon, introducing paper chromatography to lichenological taxonomy. Despite his brief career in lichenology, his multidisciplinary approach established new standards for monographic research in the field. Runemark later shifted his focus to studying evolutionary patterns of vascular plants in the Aegean Islands, particularly island endemics, using the archipelago as a natural laboratory to examine evolutionary processes in small plant populations. His botanical contributions were recognised with the OPTIMA Gold Medal in 1993, and several plant taxa have been named in his honour.

Biography

Born in Chicago, (U.S.A.), he graduated in 1956 at Lund University, having started his studies there on the yellow species of the lichen, Rhizocarpon, in the late 1940s under the supervision of Ove Almborn. The work undertaken for his PhD was subsequently published as a monograph in the journal Opera Botanica as "Studies in Rhizocarpon". He died on 11 December 2014 at the age of almost 88 years.