Sidney Alfred Skan

Sidney Alfred Skan (13 August 1870 – 19 December 1939) was a British gardener, botanist, and librarian associated with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

Biography Sidney Alfred Skan was born on 13 August (according to other sources, 30 August) 1870 in Kinton Green, Warwickshire, England. He studied horticulture at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens in Edgbaston under William Bradbury Latham.

In 1892, he joined the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, working initially in the arboretum. From 1894, Skan was employed in the Kew Herbarium Library as assistant to William Botting Hemsley. By 1899, he had effectively taken charge of the library, issuing annual catalogues of new accessions until 1916.

Selected publications Skan, S.A. (1910). “Labiatae”. In: W.H. Harvey et al. (eds.), Flora capensis, Vol. 5, Sect. 1(2): 226–387.

Taxa named in his honour Quercus skaniana Dunn, 1908 [≡ Lithocarpus skanianus (Dunn) Rehder, 1919]