22 Jun 2017

The man who was the driving force behind the Botanic Gardens’ herbarium has been honoured by the Christchurch City Council.

The Council has voted today to name the herbarium the Lawrie Metcalf Herbarium in recognition of the former employee who worked tirelessly to grow the herbarium’s collection. Mayor Lianne Dalziel said it was fitting to honour Mr Metcalf's exceptional contribution in this way.

Lawrie Metcalf at work.

Lawrie Metcalf viewing plant material through a microscope.

Mr Metcalf was a horticultural apprentice at the Botanic Gardens when he first got involved with the herbarium in the 1940s. At that stage there were probably no more than 100 specimens in the herbarium.

In 1955 when he was appointed Assistant Curator of the Botanic Gardens, he initiated a sweeping programme to improve the Gardens' plant collections and their documentation, including making a sustained effort to build up reference specimens in the herbarium.

He personally lodged at least 1780 new specimens from throughout New Zealand and New Caledonia during the following decades and by the end of the 1970s he had contributed more than half of all the specimens in the collection.

Even today it is estimated about 45 per cent of the 5000 dried, mounted and catalogued specimens of cultivated and wild plants in the herbarium are a result of Mr Metcalf’s collecting.

Mr Metcalf was not well enough to attend today Council’s meeting but his wife Lena, sister Alison and daughter Victoria were in the public gallery when the Council made the decision to name the herbarium in his honour. Mrs Metcalf said the family was thrilled with the acknowledgement of Lawrie's integrity and hard work. "A lot of his former apprentices went on to take top jobs. He made a great contribution not just in horticulture but also in training." 

Daughter Victoria said family holidays often revolved around her father's botanical interests. "As kids we'd get frustrated because dad would always be head down looking at plants on the edge of the path, taking a cutting. That's how the world learnt to grow a lot of these native plants was from his efforts. I'm so proud of my dad. It was really emotional listening to that tribute because he worked incredibly hard during his career."