Raleigh Black

Raleigh Adelbert Black (11 March 1880 – 2 July 1963) was a Scottish-born Australian botanist who amassed one of the largest and most important private collections of Tasmanian plant specimens of his day.

Biography

He was probably born in Aberdeen, Scotland, where his father tutored in theology. In 1890 the family emigrated to Hobart, Tasmania, where the father helped to found the University of Tasmania. From an early age Black was interested in natural history. He gained a good reputation as an amateur entomologist after making a collection of Tasmanian beetles, and this led to his employment by the Tasmanian government to investigate the incidence of San Jose scale in Tasmanian orchards. He was given a permanent position at the age of 21, at which time he turned his attention to botany. Tutored by Leonard Rodway, Black obtained a solid working knowledge of the Tasmanian flora. Black moved to Sydney around 1927, and to Melbourne in 1931. There he took work as a country traveller for a chemical firm, a job that offered many opportunities for specimen collection. Around 1940 he became interested in plant physiology, especially the movement of water through the vessels. He died in Melbourne in 1963.

Legacy

Black's reputation primarily rests upon the massive private herbarium that he amassed. This was estimated in 1952 as containing around 15000 specimens, 9000 of which were mounted, and most of which were Tasmanian plants. On this basis he has been described by James Hamlyn Willis as "the most important collector of Tasmanian vascular flora during the first half of the [20th] century." Black put his herbarium up for sale in 1946, but his asking price was considered too high, and no buyer was found. It was eventually sold to the National Herbarium of Victoria in August 1957 for £300.