Franklyn Hugh Perring
The Dot Map
And today is the birthday of the botanist Franklyn Hugh Perring who is born in London on this day in 1927.
In 1962, Perring, along with Max Walters, wrote The Atlas of the British Flora, which some called the most important natural history book of the 20th century.
It was Franklin Perring who devised the Dot Map.
He was an outstanding field botanist with a phenomenal memory for plants.
Perring was the best kind of botanist, possessing the eagerness of an amateur and the training of a true professional.
Perring had obtained his Ph.D. in Cambridge. When Max Walters, the director of the University herbarium, invited him to map the distribution of all the wildflowers trees and ferns of England and Ireland, Perring said, "yes."
Planning and leading groups of experts on remote field trips by bicycle, train, or on foot, was Perring’s favorite thing to do. Walters and Perring successfully mapped all of Britain’s plants in under five years.