Editorial : Peter Bannister

Peter Bannister was born in England, completed a B.Sc. in botany at Nottingham University and a Ph.D. at the University of Aberdeen, on the water relations of heath plants. This combination of ecology and physiology was somewhat novel at the time, and taught him to tread carefully along the narrow line between supervisors in opposing camps. Research on the water relations, resistance to drought and heat, mineral nutrition and carbohydrate economy of heath plants, and the production of a popular introductory text on physiological plant ecology, continued during lectureships at the Universities of Glasgow and Stirling. He was appointed Professor and Head of the Botany Department, Otago University in 1979. The shift to a totally alien native flora was initially traumatic (although ferns at least had familiar genera) and contributed to an unhealthy interest in introduced species (including, of course, heather in Tongariro National Park), and a desire to determine some of the physiology and tolerance limits of native plants in order to force them into (his) ecological context. As a perennial Head of Department (he is currently enjoying his fourth term) he has not had as much time for research (or even thought) as he might have liked. However, he is wholly or partly responsible for at least 60 refereed papers on various aspects of plant physiology and ecology. Sabbatical leave has been a welcome bonus that has enabled a modicum of research, writing, and thinking. He has recently returned from leave based at the University of Liverpool’s Botanic Gardens at Ness, in Cheshire, England, where he re-visited his interests in heath plants, and made botanical excursions to Ireland, Crete, and Madeira. He found Madeira particularly interesting for its sub-alpine heather woodland, as the origin of many plants naturalised in New Zealand, and for its own crop of naturalised aliens, including mixed stands of gorse and manuka along montane road-sides (an apposite association in view of what follows). __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________