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Telopea Vol. 6(4): 1996 
to botany after meeting the lively minds of the Botany Department at that time: Professor 
Eric Ashby (later Lord Ashby), physiologist Bob (later Sir Rutherford) Robertson, ecologist 
Noel Beadle and geneticist Newton Barber. Early in his career he also developed close 
contacts at the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences in Sydney with botanists Spencer 
Smith-White (later of the University of Sydney) and J.L. (Jack) Willis, as well as 
phytochemist Howard McKern. This was a time of wide-ranging, indeed re-awakening, 
interest in Australia's flora and vegetation, and all these botanists were searching for 
understanding of processes of evolution and variation, seen in terms of ecology and 
physiology. In his final research year as an undergraduate some of his work was at the 
National Herbarium of New South Wales, the scientific arm of Sydney's Royal Botanic 
Gardens, where his main contacts were Anderson and Vickery. 
Lawrie Johnson (LJ) joined the staff of the Herbarium in 1948. The team there in 
those years was growing although still small, with the Director and Chief Botanist 
Robert (Bob) Anderson and botanists Knowles Mair, Joyce Vickery, Mary Tindale, 
Alma Lee (nee Melvaine), Joy Garden (later Joy Thompson), Neridah Ford, George 
Chippendale and Valerie Jones (nee May). Herbarium Assistants and Technical 
Officers were unknown in the Herbarium until well into the 1960s and all curation 
of the collections rested with the botanists. 
Another person relevant to LJ's work was Ernest (Ernie) Constable, the Botanical 
Collector. They made many fieldtrips together, in Ernie's old-style vans, which were 
scarcely adequate for the often poor roads. LJ particularly remembers Ernie's intrepid 
bush skills and ability to find his way, as well as how Ernie would reduce costs by 
seeking overnight accommodation for himself and Lawrie from his many friends in 
the Baptist Church or his ex-army mates. On other occasions, when camping in the 
bush, Ernie would cheerily wake his companions too early (in their view) with a cup 
of tea and an excessively hearty 'Rise and shine!'. 
In the Herbarium LJ and his colleagues had inherited a rich collection which had 
received inadequate curation in the decades since the retirement in 1924 of that 
outstanding early Director, Joseph Henry Maiden. In seeking to improve the situation, 
emphasis was not so much on the physical curation as on improving the botanical 
order and information content. The specimens remained unmounted in their folders, 
but both Australian and non-Australian groups were now being critically assessed 
and arranged according to the best available revisions. The Flora of New South Wales, 
issued as a supplementary series to the Contributions of the Neto South Wales National 
Herbarium, was commenced. Despite the enthusiasm of the botanists, it proceeded far 
too slowly, and was later replaced by a Flora project along very different lines (Harden 
1990-3). Johnson's treatment of the cycads was among the first and most thorough 
issues of this series, and an associated revision (Johnson 1959) assessed the distinctions 
between major cycad groups and established the families Zamiaceae and Stangeriaceae. 
Oleaceae followed soon after, again with major elucidation of relationships. 
The final year of LJ's university studies had been spent in research on the Casuarinaceae, 
a group in which he has continued research intermittently for decades, jointly in recent 
times with Karen Wilson. He speaks of how he irritated the Western Australian 
Government Botanist, Charles Gardner, by indicating his own intention to assess various 
Casuarina (subsequently Allocasuarina) species then recently described by Gardner. Now 
LJ has long recognised why his early comments were seen as brash by that very senior 
botanist. Over the years Johnson's expression of his views has changed from the brashness 
of youth, but has not been muted. He has sometimes been seen as unduly vehement, 
particularly by those whom he considered did not live up to his expectations of logical 
thought, clear expression or wide knowledge. He has always held opinions strongly, 
and strongly criticised those who disagreed, while being prepared to change his opinions 
